More than nine out of ten Virginia students entering high school in 2012 — 91.3%, to be exact — earned a diploma in four years, up from 88% four years previously, according to new Virginia Department of Education data.

“The success demonstrated by our students is a testament to the resolve of teachers, administrators, parents and community leaders across the Commonwealth to ensure that every individual gets a good education,” said Governor Terry McAuliffe in releasing the results.

This is, of course, great news if the numbers are meaningful. As usual, I feel compelled to express the fear (not  conviction, just a fear) that the numbers represent more gaming by local school officials than actual progress. By way of example, I point to the impressive gains achieved by the Petersburg School System, where the graduation rate was up by double digits, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

That would be the same City of Petersburg where city officials did not know that the city was running a 20% budget deficit until the city reached a crisis point. Now, I’ll concede that the school board and school superintendent are not the same people as the city council and the former city manager who allowed the fiscal mess to fester. But one might be forgiven for wondering if, perchance, Petersburg administrators were engaging in a wee bit of social promotion. Either way, Petersburg deserves a closer look, either as a stellar example of how to keep kids in school or as a case of how administrators manipulate numbers to look good.

It takes only a handful of school districts to monkey with the numbers in order to skew the statewide average.

Update: How foolish of me not to have checked with Cranky, the expert in VDOE data. He posts his take on the graduation rate data here. The key to understanding is that the federal government recognizes two kinds of diplomas — standard diplomas and advanced studies diplomas for purposes of calculating the federal graduation indicator. But VDOE also counts “Modified Standard Diploma” for students with disabilities and “Special Diplomas,” also for students with disabilities.

The statewide difference between the federal on-time graduation rate and Virginia’s amounts to 3.6 percentage points this year, or 3,439 students. Cranky doesn’t track that differential over time, but if that number is growing, there’s a good bet that some “hide the pea” is going on.

— JAB