ATLANTA — Georgia’s four-year high school graduation rate has risen to 87.2%, but a significant gap remains between graduation and college or career readiness.
While the graduation rate in Georgia has increased by a couple of percentage points year over year, data reveals that less than 60% of students are prepared for college or a career after graduation.
Channel 2’s Michael Doudna was live in Clayton County after digging into the numbers.
When you get a degree from a high school, many would expect the students to be ready for the next step in college or for a job, but data shows there is a 20% gap between students graduating and those actually ready for the next steps.
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Districts are hoping to change that.
“That tells us that I think that speaks more to the systemic issues that school districts are facing, right?” said Angira Sceusi, executive director, Redefine Ed Atlanta.
Socioeconomic issues, and more, contribute to the problem, she said.
But the gap between graduation and readiness has some parents, like Vee Whitaker, homeschooling their kids.
“Yeah, I think that they’re graduating just to graduate, but there’s no real life skills embedded in that graduation or that curriculum,” she said.
But others believe in the vision.
“What this district means to me is opportunity and growth,” said Caleb Dukes, a Clayton County senior.
This district saw the biggest jump in graduation rates last year, and although the county’s preparedness rates lag, they believe recent programs that emphasize preparing students for future jobs will make a difference.
“Clayton County Schools and Jonesboro High School have prepared my student for the future completely,” said Kesha Graves, Dukes’ mother.
Now graduation rates have steadily ticked up over the last decade—coinciding with the state doing away with a standardized test required to graduate.
Clayton County Public Schools issued a statement in response to a question about what the district is doing to bridge the gap between graduation and proficiency rates:
At Clayton County Public Schools, Education, Experiences, and Exposure form the foundation on which futures are constructed. Our responsibility is to ensure that proficiency and graduation do not travel as separate tracks, but rather converge as evidence that every child who enters our schools departs fully prepared to thrive.
The record shows progress: Clayton County posted the greatest CCRPI growth in the metro area (+18.6) and the most significant increase in graduation rate. These gains are the product of intentional work, yet they mark only the first harvest, not the final horizon.
We are planting literacy early with partners such as The Rollins Center, strengthening teachers through sustained training, widening pathways to college-prep and magnet opportunities (nearly 20 programs districtwide), and partnering with colleges and corporations to give students a view of the future before they arrive there. We are also extending the circle of support to families through first-generation college tours and Parent University, because when the community learns together, children climb higher.
This work calls for stamina and vision. We embrace it not as a burden but as a covenant: to dismantle barriers with creativity and to shape today’s trials into tomorrow’s triumphs for every student in Clayton County.
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