Although the formula used to calculate graduation rates for S.C. schools is unclear and high school graduation rates are calculated differently from state to state, Table 16 data are useful for comparison purposes. Graduation rates by county place Spartanburg ahead of the other comparison counties at 76.1%, followed by Richland at 71.1%, Greenville at 69.6%, and Charleston at 61.3%. Of the seven Spartanburg districts, District 4 had the highest graduation rate at 89.4% and District 7 had the lowest at 65.8%. The 2007 state graduation rate was 70.9%

It should be noted that there is significant controversy surrounding dropout and graduation rates. Intuitively, the above reported dropout rate and graduation rate for each district is nonsensical in that, added together, they do not equate to 100%. Dropout rates range from less than 1% to less than 5% by district, whereas graduation rates range from 61% to 89%. Clearly, non-graduates are classified in ways other than as dropouts

Because states report graduation rates based on varying formulas, they are not comparable. In 2006, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research calculated state graduation rates by applying the same formula to each state’s enrollment and diploma data. These data were reported consistently to the National Center for Educational Statistics using uniform federal guidelines. This study, which controlled for multiple intervening variables, found that South Carolina’s graduation rate was last among states at 54% (excluding Hawaii which was not included in the study due to insufficient data). There is, therefore, a marked discrepancy between the reported state graduation rate of 70.9% as reported by the S.C. Department of Education, and the 54% rate as reported by the Manhattan Institute.

Graduation rates by select demographics, as indicated in Table 17, reveal that the point spread by race is much narrower in Spartanburg County than in other counties. Among Spartanburg districts, District 7 had the widest point spread in graduation rate between white students and black / African-American students. In Spartanburg Districts 3 and 5, graduation rates are higher for blacks than for whites. Females graduate at higher rates than males in every district. Low socio-economic status is clearly the strongest predictor of low graduation rate.