Grad Nation: Building a Grad Nation, Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic, 2016-2017 Annual Update
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Date
2017-09
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Abstract
This year signifies two key milestones in the GradNation campaign to raise high school graduation rates. First, the release of the 2015 federal graduation rate data marks five years since states began reporting the Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate (ACGR). The ACGR, for the first time, created a common formula for collecting graduation rate statistics across states and provides data on individual student subgroups down to the school and district levels. With five years of ACGR data, it is clearer than ever before where progress is being made and where it is not, which students continue to graduate at higher and lower rates and how this varies by state, and where graduation rate gaps are closing and persisting between student subgroups. Second, there are now just five years of federal graduation rate data reporting between now and the culmination of the GradNation goal to raise high school graduation rates to 90 percent by the Class of 2020. We have made remarkable progress as a nation, but need to accelerate our progress to reach our goal.
Description
This year signifies two key milestones in the GradNation campaign to raise high school graduation rates. First, the release of the 2015 federal graduation rate data marks five years since states began reporting the Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate (ACGR). The ACGR, for the first time, created a common formula for collecting graduation rate statistics across states and
provides data on individual student subgroups down to the school and district levels. With five years of ACGR data, it is clearer than ever before where progress is being made and where it is not, which students continue to graduate at higher and lower rates and how this varies by state, and where graduation rate gaps are closing and persisting between student subgroups. Second, there are now just five years of federal graduation rate data reporting between now and the culmination of the GradNation goal to raise high school graduation rates to 90 percent by the Class of 2020. We have made remarkable progress as a nation, but need to accelerate our progress to reach our goal.
These milestones are significant not simply because we are halfway to the endpoint of a 10-year campaign to bring greater attention to the state of high school graduation in our country, but also because they mark an opportunity to learn from the progress and challenges of the first five years of ACGR and to renew our commitment to graduating more students ready to move successfully into the postsecondary or career path of their choice. Since the 2010-11 school year, the national
high school graduation rate is up more than four percentage points, rising from 79 percent to a record high of 83.2 percent in 2015. Over this five-year period, graduation rates have increased in almost every state and for every student subgroup. Progress since 2001 in raising high school graduation rates has resulted in 2.8 million more students graduating from high school rather than dropping out.
This progress, however, is tempered by slowing gains, stubborn graduation rate gaps for historically underperforming subgroups, and the significant number of students who still attend low-graduation-rate high schools. The nation needs to nearly double its rate of progress in boosting high school graduation rates in the coming years in order to reach its 90 percent goal by the Class of 2020. Questions also continue to be raised over the validity of increasing graduation rates and the alternative pathways that are being created for the students who fall off track to graduation. In this year’s Building a Grad Nation report, we examine areas of concern in high school graduation rate reporting, including measurement errors, cases of schools and districts gaming the system, and issues around lowering diploma standards, as well as other areas of progress and remaining challenges on the path to 90 percent.
Keywords
Grad Nation, Dropout Crisis