Couldn't a fail be an indicator that schools still are serving kids? "Oh, Johnny didn't really get it the first time around, let's get him to try again"? I'm not necessarily advocating this point of view, but stating the statistic isn't enough to get your point across. You need to propose a proper way of interpreting those results as well.
Fewer than 70% of US high school students graduate with their class. Few districts do better than 80%. About 3% or so homeschool, so that leaves you with about 67% who graduate in the system.
The 2005 data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that 34% of 12th graders rated "proficient" reading abilities.
Not exactly a glowing success.
There are good options if you're looking for alternatives. I know a bit about the situation in Seattle because I opted out of high school there. The school district there has a "school" set up where home schoolers can register, do some non-home friendly classes (science & theater mostly IIRC), and benefit from government education funding. Many cities have programs that let high schoolers get credit for taking college classes and some universities are set up to do early admission (I did the UW program). Before all that I did an apprenticeship at a small electronics company (age 13). Pretty much you need to do the legwork though, you may find that the school district isn't interested in helping students leave the system (taking their funding with them).