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By Sarah Butrymowicz

You can see it all over our map of graduation rates by district: a pocket of low graduation rates surrounded by higher ones, indicating a city and its surrounding suburbs.

It should come as no surprise that urban districts tend to have lower graduation rates than suburban ones. They often have more disadvantaged students and fewer resources.

An analysis of 2009 graduation rates found that 60.9 percent of high-schoolers in cities graduated across the country, compared with 75.3 percent in suburbs. (Towns and rural districts were in the middle, graduating 71.7 percent and 75 percent of students, respectively.)

This week, I thought we’d take a closer look at some of the nation’s largest metro areas to see how similar –– and different –– they are.

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