State Education Commissioner David M. Steiner looks at Buffalo’s high school graduation rate and sees stagnation.

Buffalo School Superintendent James A. Williams looks at the same data and sees substantial progress.

That difference spilled over into acrimony Tuesday when Williams accused Steiner of twisting Buffalo’s graduation statistics to justify what Williams calls a pro-charter school state agenda.

“I think they want to paint the picture that urban schools don’t know what they’re doing, so that he has to bring in charter schools and privatize public education,” Williams said. “Don’t try to make us look bad to justify your agenda. We already look bad.”

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Williams also said Buffalo school officials received four phone calls since Thursday from state Education Department officials who were, as Williams characterized it, scrambling to finalize last year’s graduation rates.

“I don’t think they know what they’re doing,” Williams said. “I’m being told it’s so confused up there it’s just unbelievable. It’s chaos.”

Tom Dunn, a spokesman for Steiner, said department staff members called Buffalo school officials several times to verify figures, because a change in Buffalo’s student promotion policy made last year’s data more complicated.

“We did make calls to the Buffalo district in advance of the news conference,” Dunn said. “We needed to drill down into the numbers to make sure we were reporting the data accurately.”

Dunn declined to comment on the charge that Steiner has a pro-charter school agenda.

Williams made his remarks after the state’s yearly release of school district graduation rates.

In an Albany news conference that was carried by phone and the Internet, Steiner presented statistics, saying, “In Buffalo, the graduation rate has not changed significantly over the past four years.”

Buffalo’s four-year graduation rate started at 52 percent in 2005, slipped to 45.1 percent in 2007 and then rose to 53.1 percent last year, he said. Steiner characterized a 1.3 percentage point increase from 2008 to last year as “modest.”

In addition, Steiner said, last year’s figures excluded more than 800 Buffalo students who had been held back in eighth grade because they weren’t ready for high school work. With those students left out of the total, the rate of increase in the graduation rate was expected to be greater, he said.

Williams pointed to data — also provided to reporters by the state — showing a 12.2 percentage point increase in the graduation rate over the last four years, to 57.3 percent from 45.1 percent. Those figures represent students who graduated after four years or after summer school following their fourth year of high school.

“Of course we’re not where we want to be, but we’re making progress,” Williams said. “Let’s play the game fairly. I don’t think they’re playing the game fairly in our urban districts.”

Williams’ reference to a charter school agenda was apparently prompted in part by a state application for “Race to the Top” federal funds that lists conversion to charter schools as one remedy for failing schools.

Statewide, the graduation rate was 74 percent for students who attended high school for four years or for four years plus a summer.

In Erie and Niagara counties, 33 of 38 districts exceeded that state average.

Twelve districts — Alden, Clarence, East Aurora, Eden, Grand Island, Hamburg, Iroquois, Lancaster, Orchard Park, Williamsville, Lewiston-Porter and Starpoint — had graduation rates of 90 percent or higher.

At the Charter School for Applied Technologies in the Town of Tonawanda, all 168 seniors graduated in four years.

The Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District, which had a graduation rate of 81 percent, has launched a three-pronged “Destination Graduation” effort to better identify and assist students who are falling behind, Superintendent Mark P. Mondanaro said.

“While I am pleased to see a strong graduation rate, we will continue to work even harder to have 100 percent of our students graduate in four years,” he said.