Comment of the Day: St. Louis Public Schools Have More Than One Gold Star

By Chad Garrison Tue., Mar. 15 2011 at 4:59 PM

Today's comment comes in response to a post today looking at some promising and disturbing statistics about St. Louis public schools. The article prompted one commenter to surmise that the district's best school -- Metro High -- artificially props up the academics of other schools.

The school district's communication's director, Patrick Wallace, took exception to that assumption in responding:

Metro is the highest performing academic public high school in the state of Missouri, so naturally it has "great" stats. However, try these "good" stats on for size: Clyde C. Miller Academy has a 95% graduation rate with 72% of its graduates going on to college... Carnahan High School has a 97% graduation rate and 95% attendance rate... Soldan High School has 94% attendance rate and 73% of graduates go to college. For comparison sake, Mehlville High School in the County has a 94% attendance rate and 82% graduation rate with 74% of graduates going to college... Pattonville High has a 93% attendance rate with a 90% graduation rate and 66% of graduates going to college. So, as you see, there are "good" stats left for SLPS high schools other than Metro.