The high school graduation rate for 2013-14 was 82 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education, as reported in U.S. News. This is a 1-percent increase from the prior year, and the highest since states began using a uniform method of calculating graduation rates several years ago.
Broken down to the state level, 36 states demonstrated an increase in graduation rates. In addition, the majority of states have closed achievement gaps between various student subpopulations.
In comparison to the overall national graduation rate, CTE students tend to graduate at higher levels. In 2012, the average high school graduation rate for CTE concentrators was 93 percent, compared to the national adjusted cohort graduation rate of 80 percent.[i]
[i] Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education data; Civic Enterprises et al., Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic: Annual Update, 2014.
Quite an interesting rise, especially in light of the low performance by students on the PARCC and SMARTER Balanced assessments. This begs the question, are graduation rates rising, or are requirements for graduation falling? A second question that must be asked is how much is the percentage skewed by the higher graduation rate of students who have taken CTE courses versus a traditional academic curricula?
Posted by: Mario Minichino | 01/06/2016 at 09:44 AM