Indianapolis - The rate of Indiana students graduating from high school within four years rose slightly last year, although nearly a quarter of students failed to earn a diploma within that time, state officials said Tuesday.

Figures released by the state Department of Education show that 76.5 percent of students graduated within four years, a 0.4 percentage-point improvement from 2006.

At 19 high schools across the state, fewer than half the students graduated, the state records showed. Among the schools with the lowest graduation rates were Hammond High School (36 percent), Roosevelt High School in Gary (41 percent) and Northwest High School in Indianapolis (40 percent).

Fifty-five schools, or 15 percent of the 368 schools tracked by the state, had graduation rates of 90 percent or better and 135 schools (37 percent) had rates of between 80 percent and 90 percent.

“The stark reality that not all high school students graduate is by no means a new concern in America, but earning a diploma has never been more critical to future opportunities than it is today,” Suellen Reed, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement. “Despite signs of improvement in some communities, far too many Hoosier students leave school lacking this basic credential.”

The education department said students who are black, Hispanic, from low-income families or have limited English skills were less likely to graduate. Indiana schools with higher percentages of these students had lower graduation rates, the department said.

Last year’s non-graduates included 11.9 percent reported as dropouts or whose status was undetermined because they either moved out of state or did not formally withdraw from school, the agency said. The remainder were students who earned a GED (2.7 percent), a special education certificate (1.0 percent), a non-diploma course completion certificate (0.6 percent) and those still enrolled in school (7.3 percent).

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