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Mayor Bloomberg points to a chart showing graduation rate increases among ethnic groups.

Those were the messages Mayor Bloomberg broadcast at the city’s press conference about new graduation rate data, which put the city’s official 4-year graduation rate over 60 percent for the first time.

Indeed, the data released today show that two trends continued last year: The city’s graduation rate again rose faster than that of other urban districts in New York State, and black and Hispanic students posted larger gains than white and Asian students, though they still lag far behind.

But today’s data also draw attention to the fact that many city students are making it to graduation despite weak academic skills. According to a new measure the state adopted this year, just 21 percent of students who entered city high schools in 2006 were ready for college four years later. A higher proportion of graduates — 35 percent — met the state’s standards, city officials noted.

Bloomberg said the focus on college readiness gives short shrift to real performance improvements. “If you don’t give people credit for what they’ve done, they can’t go on,” he said.

At the press conference, which took place at the Van Arsdale campus in Brooklyn, Bloomberg was accompanied by Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, department deputies, principals, students, and principals union president Ernest Logan — but not UFT President Michael Mulgrew. The mayor took aim at the state’s argument that city students are not ready for college, saying that measures of college-readiness are ”just arbitrary points.” (more…)