Lynn 4 Year GED Rates

As was previously posted, nearly a quarter of Lynn residents have less than a high school diploma per the most recent data. Additionally, there are a percentage of Lynn students each year who obtain a GED instead of a high school diploma. In 2011, 3.3% of all students who started 9th grade in 2007 and should have graduated four years later obtained a GED while 68.6% graduated on time. This figure was down from 3.8% in 2010. Below is the 2011 GED data by secondary school. 

	4 Year	4 Year (Adj)
Classical	2.1%	2.4%
English	3.5%	2.3%
Fecteau-Leary	12.5%	N/A
Tech	3.7%	2.6%

Key

 '4 Year' refers to all students starting 9th grade in 2007 who should have graduated from the Lynn high school by 2011.

'4 Year (Adj)' also refers to students starting 9th grade in 2007 who should have graduated by 2011; the difference is here that this information only refers to those who spent the entire 4 year secondary period in LPS. Those who began high school elsewhere are not included.

Citation: http://www.doe.mass.edu/

Lynn Educational Attainment Data

In the August 27th edition of The Daily Item, there was an article which discussed School Committee member Maria Carrasco's belief that Lynn needs to offer more GED classes. While there was a question of whether offering such classes would be counter-intuitive for a public school system who would like to graduate all students with a diploma, still Lynn may need to consider a way to balance this mission along with the substantial need in the city. Below are figures regarding educational attainment for residents age 25 and older in the city of Lynn as reported by the American Community Survey for 2006 - 2010.

Educational Attainment
Less than 9th grade	12.1%
9th - 12th grade, no diploma	10.0%
High school graduate (includes GED)	35.7%
Some college	16.0%
Associate's Degree	8.2%
Bachelor's Degree	11.2%
Graduate or Professional Degree	6.8%

From this we see that 22.1% of people over age 25 do not have a high school diploma while 26.2% of people have an associate's degree or higher. Lynn residents with either a high school degree, GED or some college credits make up 51.7% of the population. With over half of the population only having attained a high school diploma or less, this data indicates that Lynn overall consists of a largely undereducated population particularly when one notes that 88.7% of Massachusetts residents have a high school diploma or greater. Raising educational attainment levels in Lynn both through targeted dropout interventions and increased middle and secondary school guidance within the schools coupled with offering GED classes to people over age 20 or 25 is one potential avenue toward an improved economic situation in the city.

Given that nearly a quarter of Lynn's population age 25 and older do not have a high school diploma, should Lynn offer more GED classes?  Could the public schools' mission be balanced with this idea by only offering classes to people in this age range?

Citation: http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_10_1YR_DP02&prodType=table