The crime rate, suspension rate and high school dropout rate all improved this past school year in the Wake County school system.

New figures released by the state today show that Wake's dropout rate decreased from 3.53 percent in 2009-10 to 3.25 percent in 2010-11. Wake had 1,386 dropouts, down from 1,689 in the 2007-08 school year.

The report notes that Wake had among the largest 3-year dropout rate decreases among the 115 school districts.

Suspension and dropout rates and Blue Diamond assessments will be on the agenda for today's Wake County school board student achievement committee meeting.

The majority of today's meeting is slated for a discussion of Wake's suspension and dropout data and an overview of the dropout professional learning team. Click here for the handout from the last meeting.

Guess what's the top reason why Wake County students receive a short-term suspension?

A short-term suspension is defined as one that's for less than 10 days of school. In 2008-09, 20,651 short-term suspensions were given to 10,918 students in Wake, costing 57,650 school days.

The top reason in Wake was:

Wake, like the rest of the state, has seen a decline in the dropout rate based on new numbers released today.

In the 2007-08 school year, Wake saw 1,689 kids drop out of high school, compared to 1,647 the prior year. But due to the increase in Wake's high school enrollment, the dropout rate dipped from 4.21 percent to 4.17 percent.

We can now officially say that the 95 percent goal is dead.

School administrators will present test results this afternoon showing Wake is well short of having 95 percent of students in grades 3-12 passing state tests by 2008. The result was expected but now it's final.

We don't have school-by-school results yet. But we do have districtwide data.

Amid all the No Child Left Behind news, Wake has also released its latest high school graduation data.

Based on freshmen who entered high school in 2004, 78.8 percent graduated on time this past school year. That's down slightly from the prior four-year graduadtion rate of 79.3 percent.

The new statewide data isn't out yet but Wake usually has a higher percentage. Last year, the state's graduation rate was 69.5 percent.

School districts are required to keep track of graduation data as part of NCLB. Go here for Wake's school-by-school results.