Who Wins the Highest Graduation Rate?

School graduation rates have always been a big deal in the U.S. It is specially a big deal when it comes to the race percentages of the students. Some districts depend on their graduation rate to determine their financial benefits at the end of the school year. This also determines the accuracy the teachers are teaching their students and how the students are doing overall in school. Some schools benefits from their graduation rates as they are in high percentage and they even get more financial benefits. Other schools (mostly in low income household areas), have low graduation rates and even become Title 1 schools and receive little to no financial benefits.

The following indicator examines the percentage of U.S. public high school students who graduate on time as measured in the adjusted cohort graduation rate or the ACGR. In the indicator, the United States includes public schools in the fifty (50) states and the District of Columbia. State education agencies calculate the ACGR by identifying the cohort of first-time ninth-graders in a particular school year. The cohort is then adjusted by adding any students who immigrate from another country or transfer into the cohort after the 9th grade and subtracting any students who transfer out, emigrate to another country or pass away. the ACGR is the percentage of students in this adjusted cohort who graduate within four (4) years with a regular high school diploma.

Figure 1. Adjusted cohort graduation rate (ACGR) for public high school students, by state: 2017-18

NOTE: The ACGR is the percentage of public high school freshmen who graduate with a regular diploma within 4 years of starting ninth grade. The Bureau of Indian Education and Puerto Rico are not included in the U.S. average ACGR. The graduation rates displayed above have been rounded to whole numbers. Categorizations are based on unrounded percentages.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Consolidated State Performance Report, 2017–18. See Digest of Education Statistics 2019, table 219.46.

The U.S. average ACGR for public high school students increased over the first eight (8) years it was collected, from seventy-nine (79) percent in 2010-11 to eighty-five (85) percent in 2017-18. More than three-quarters of the states thirty-nine (39) reported ACGRs from eighty (80) percent to less than ninety (90) percent. 

NOTE: The ACGR is the percentage of public high school freshmen who graduate with a regular diploma within 4 years of starting ninth grade. The Bureau of Indian Education and Puerto Rico are not included in the U.S. average ACGR. Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Consolidated State Performance Report, 2017–18. See Digest of Education Statistics 2019, table 219.46.