Checking on the Gender Gap in High School Dropout Rates

New data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that during the 2009-10 school year, more than 206,000 girls in grades 9-12 dropped out of high school in the United States. Thus, 2.9 percent of all girls in high school that year, dropped out of school. For male students, more than 280,000 dropped out of school, 3.8 percent of all boys in high school that year.

For girls, the highest dropout rate was in the state of Arizona, where 7.2 percent of all girls in high school that year dropped out. In Alaska, the District of Columbia, New Mexico, and Wyoming, more than 5 percent of high school girls dropped out during the 2009-10 school year. The state with the lowest dropout rate for girls was New Hampshire. Indiana, Minnesota, Idaho, Alabama, and New Jersey all had high school dropout rates of 1.5 percent or lower.

In every state in the union, the dropout rate for boys was higher than the dropout rate for girls.