An estimated 11 D.C. public school students are dropping out of the system each day and will fail to earn their high school diplomas, putting the city’s graduation rate more than 10 percentage points below the national average, according to a new report by Education Week.

For the study, researchers for the online publication analyzed 2004-2005 statistics — which are the most recent specific data sets available — and used the information to make projections about this year’s graduating class.

Unlike the nation as a whole, D.C.’s graduation rate has been dropping since 2001, when 65 percent of seniors finished high school on time.

The rate for 2004-2005 was 57.6 percent, and Education Week estimates the graduation rate for this school year to be the same.

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Comparatively, the U.S. average is 71 percent, with some states like Iowa and New Jersey boasting rates upward of 80 percent.

Education Week experts predicted in their report that only 2,600 of D.C.’s 4,600 current seniors will graduate from high school later this month.

Jennifer Calloway, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s assistant press secretary, told The Examiner that final tallies of graduating seniors won’t be known until June 20, one week after most schools hold graduation ceremonies.

A Freedom of Information Act request by The Examiner last month asking for documentation about the number of students in danger of not graduating at each of D.C.’s public schools was denied by officials.

Education Week’s analysis also calls attention to the discrepancies between individual states’ reported graduation rates and the rates computed by its researchers, who calculated the likelihood that a ninth-grader would complete high school on time.

For instance, D.C.’s self-reported rate for the year studied was about 70 percent. That puts the jurisdiction in the middle of the pack compared with the states.

But according to Education Week’s calculations, only four states fared worse than the District: Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico and South Carolina.

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com