Today, Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced that the city's high school graduation rate was 60.7% for 2008, "marking the first time the City’s graduation rate has surpassed 60 percent according to the State Education Department, which released the data today." Bloomberg is using the data to bolster his case for continuing mayoral control of schools: The graduation rate went up 3.6 percentage points between 2007 and 2008 and "the graduation rate among English Language Learners rose more than 10 percentage points between 2007 and 2008." The dropout rate is now at a new low of 13.5%, after falling 3.3 points between 2007 and 2008. Bloomberg said, "After years of near stagnation, our reforms have increased the graduation rate each year since we’ve been in office—and I’m so proud to see that graduation rates are up again this year. This year, English and math scores went way up, schools got much safer, and many more of our high school seniors have earned their diplomas. This is a great day for New York City schools."