COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio’s graduation rate dipped in 2009 for the second straight year, even as both traditional and public charter schools showed overall improvements in student achievement.

According to the state report card released Friday, 83 percent of seniors graduated from high school in 2009, down from 84.6 percent in 2008 and from the decade-high 86.9 percent in 2007.

State Superintendent Deborah Delisle said it’s unclear why the graduation problem persists. It is worst among blacks and Hispanics, whose graduation rates are just more than 61 percent, and among migrants, whose graduate rate is 55.2 percent. Asians are highest, at 92 percent, with whites at 88.6 percent.

“The graduation rate is clearly a concern for the Department of Education and it is a key priority for us,” Delisle told reporters in a conference call.

The report comes on the heels of Ohio being awarded $400 million in federal Race to the Top education funds, and Delisle said graduation rate improvements are part of the strategy laid out in Ohio’s successful application for that money.

“For me, it is not acceptable for Ohio students to not graduate,” she said.

Delisle said she anticipates targeting fifth grade as a particular trouble area as well, after the state failed to meet proficiency targets in reading, math and science last school year. She named seventh grade math as another area of concern.

But she pointed to some overall positive trends, including a decade of consistent increases in the state performance index that measures progress for individual students regardless whether they pass proficiency tests.

Almost 88 percent of school districts and more than 68 percent of school buildings were rated effective or higher for the 2009-2010 school year, an increase over the previous year. More buildings but fewer districts were deemed “excellent with distinction,” the state’s version of an A-plus, than the year before. Only one district, Youngstown, remains in academic emergency. Nine are on academic watch.

Addressing a drop in the number of districts that earned the highest ranking, from 116 in 2008-2009 to 81 in 2009-2010, state education officials said the highest performing districts cannot always improve their scores year over year. Showing annual improvement gains is a criteria for earning the distinction.

Public charter schools also showed overall improvement during the last school year, with about 55 percent rated at least at a C level compared to 43 percent the year before.

Sue Westendorf, executive director of My School My Choice, a coalition of charter operators, said many of the 31 charters statewide that were at risk of being closed for low performance appear to have been saved by their improved ratings this year. Delisle said exact numbers were due out later Friday.

“It’s exciting to see state report cards show what parents in Ohio who choose to send their children to public charter schools have known all along: Charter schools are more than capable of succeeding when given a chance,” she said in a statement.

See for yourself

To see the State Report Card, click here.