81,500 Students started the 9th grade on Oct. 1, 2004. By this point some students had dropped out of school already.

+20,000 Students transferred into Washington schools from October 2004 to October 2007.
-10,000 Students transferred out of Washington schools in the same period.
-9,000 Students dropped out in grades 9, 10 or 11
-9,500 Students reclassified in other grades (mostly holdbacks; some early graduations).

72,500 Students started the 12th grade on Oct. 1, 2007.

-5,500 Net loss of students through dropouts, transfers, reclassifications, since then.

67,000 Students in the 12th grade now. (The exact number was 67,097 as of a recent date.)

The recent news that 91.4 percent of this year's 12th graders have passed the reading and writing WASL test or have submitted alternative projects applies to the 67,097 base. It is not 91.4 percent of all kids who would be seniors if everyone were in school. It is 91 percent of those still in school. And this does not mean that 91 percent of them will graduate, either. The ones who have not passed one of the required WASLs can retake it in August, and graduate in this school year (which officially ends Aug. 31). But also—and this is the larger group—there are students who don’t have the credits to graduate even though they have passed the WASLs. They can’t graduate until they take more classes.

The percentage of all kids of graduation age in Washington who graduated on time in 2007 was 72.4 percent. The state will know the rate for 2008 in late fall, after all the data trickles in.