The state Department of Education released data today about high school graduation rates. The statewide graduation rate for the 2006 cohort of students was 73.4 percent (that counts kids who finished up by June 2010).

We pulled out the stats from Capital Region school districts. As in years past, some of the results are frustrating.

Sorted stats (including notes and qualifications) after the jump.

A note about the data

"Graduation rate" in the tables below counts students from the 2006 cohort who graduated with a Regents or local degree as of August 2010 (four school years plus one summer). "Dropped out" is students who did not get a degree, did not transfer to a GED program, did not get an IEP diploma, or are not still enrolled.

First up, the whole list for the Capital Region, sorted highest to lowest.

Breakdowns by county -- with the last two years' rates -- follow that. (Comparing just a few years isn't going to give you much sense of any significant trend, but it's there for casual comparison.)

Also, based on some thoughtful comments from last year, we've put together expanded tables comparing four districts: Albany and Bethlehem, Schenectady and Niskayuna. These districts are right next to each other geographically, but have wide differences in outcomes. As people have noted in years past, there are a lot of reasons for these disparities -- and the data might highlight a few of these reasons. The expanded tables are above (scroll up).

Per pupil spending data is from SeeThroughNY. It's not from the graduation year for the cohort, but the year before.

All other data is from the NYS Education Department.

A few notes follow the tables.

Capital Region

Albany County

Rensselaer County

Saratoga County

Schenectady County

A few notes

+ Vorheesville takes the top spot for graduation rate with 97 percent (it was #2 last year). Duanesburg held the top spot last year (95 percent) -- but this year it was all the way back at #20 (85 percent). It only has about 80 students in each cohort, so a few students can cause big shifts in the percentage.

+ Albany takes the bottom spot for the second year in a row with a 47 percent rate, down from 53 percent last year. It was at 61 percent two years ago. (A few years don't necessarily imply a trend.)

+ Be sure to take a look at the expanded tables at the top. Both Albany and Schenectady have the lowest graduation rates in the Capital Region -- but they're also serving many economically disadvantaged students. It's interesting that, for this cohort at least, the economically disadvantaged students in Schenectady graduated at a higher rate than those not tagged as such.

photo: Flickr user Kyle McCluer