JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis swung by Trinity Christian Academy Friday morning to tout record-breaking graduation rates in the state.
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The newly released numbers show last school year saw an all-time high percentage of students graduating from public high schools.
The ranking excludes the two school years during the peak of COVID, as testing requirements were waived and produced artificially high graduation rates.
Just shy of 90 percent of public high school students graduated that year, which is a 1.7 percent overall increase compared to the previous year.
Black students saw a 2.1 percent year-over-year increase, Hispanic students saw a 2.2 percent increase and economically disadvantaged students saw graduation rates rise 2.4 percent.
DeSantis credited the success to a growing school choice population, which now includes half a million private school scholarship recipients, 400,000 charter students, and 150,000 home-schooled students.
Over the past several years Florida lawmakers have implemented universal private school scholarships, expanded the use of public charter schools and even offered scholarships to home-schooled students.
“We got close to 1.5 million students in various choice programs throughout Florida. When I took office in 2019, we had 100,000 students on scholarships, and we had about 300,000 in charter schools. And so, this has been a dramatic increase that we’ve been able to see,” said DeSantis.
All four major counties in Northeast Florida exceeded Florida’s average graduation rate, with St. Johns coming in at the top with a 95 percent graduation rate and Duval at the bottom in our region at 90.9 percent.
Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz attributed Duval’s rise to the recent change in leadership on the school board, adding that he expects to see more success moving forward.
“But you’re never at the end of the race. You have to continue to see what it is that you can improve and the higher your scores get, the harder that becomes. Right? So, we need to continue to demand excellence and never give up not one single kid,” said Diaz.
You can find a full breakdown of graduation rates by school HERE.
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