Akron’s graduation rate on this year’s report card, about 76 percent, is about the same as it was last year.That might not sound like much to brag about, but that rate will look pretty good compared with other urban school systems on the state report card, which will be released Wednesday.Assistant Superintendent Ellen McWilliams told the Akron school board on Monday that two graduation rates will appear on the report card: the existing graduation rate and what the rate would look like under a stricter formula that the state will start using next year.Akron’s rate will be about the same either way.However, the difference between the two rates will be shocking for many big city systems, which could see drops of more than 20 percentage points under the stricter formula, which tracks whether students complete high school in four years. The new formula defines the graduation rate as the number of students who graduate with a regular high school diploma in four years or less, divided by the number of students who were first-time ninth graders together. That group of ninth-graders is adjusted for transfers in and out over the next three years. Starting next year, that’s the graduation rate that will help determine a district’s report card.McWilliams isn’t sure why Akron’s rate turned out about the same under both formulas. She said Akron typically graduates students on time or catches them up with at most an additional semester.“We also track kids religiously,” McWilliams said. If students move, Akron officials make sure they know where they’ve ended up before officially withdrawing them. That may give the district a more realistic picture of who’s dropping out than a district that assumes the student has just moved on to another school.“If we don’t get notified from another building, we don’t just withdraw them like a lot of districts do, where they really don’t know where the kid went but they just get them off their books,” she said. “If we don’t know where they are, we don’t take them off our books and that’s the rule. You’re supposed to do that.”Akron remains in Continuous Improvement overall.McWilliams told the board the district for the first time is seeing general improvement in reading and math scores across most grades. However, science scores dropped for all but fifth grade, and 10th- and 11th-grade social studies scores declined.Buchtel High School and two alternative schools for children with disabilities and/or social and emotional problems — Bridges Learning Center and the Akron Opportunity Center — were among the bottom 5 percent in the state for academic performance earlier this year.All three, however, showed signs of improvement on the latest report card.Buchtel met federal requirements for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) on reading and math and boosted its state rating from Academic Watch to Continuous Improvement.Bridges, which serves children in grades K-8 who have special needs and also have behavior problems, showed the most dramatic improvement, jumping two ratings from Academic Emergency, the state’s lowest rating, to Continuous Improvement. The school also met the federal requirement for AYP.The state changed how it measures whether a school shows a year’s worth of growth in a year’s time. The state made it more difficult to either exceed that “value-added” mark or fall short. Bridges exceeded the mark.The Akron Opportunity Center serves children in grades 6-8 who can’t be in regular classrooms because of emotional and social problems. Although the center remained in Academic Emergency, it improved its overall performance index score, which includes test results from all students, not just those who score proficient and above.Of the district’s 54 buildings, only two, the Akron Opportunity Center and Crouse, are in Academic Emergency this year, compared with six schools last year.On the other end of the spectrum, Ritzman Elementary improved its rating from Effective to Excellent.John Higgins can be reached at 330-996-3792 or jhiggins@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the education blog at http://education.ohio.com/.