New York second in nation in grad rate improvement

On Board Online • March 26, 2012

By Paul Heiser
Senior Research Analyst

Tennessee and New York led the nation with double-digit gains in high school graduation rates from 2002 to 2009, according to a report by a coalition of groups that want the U.S. graduation rate to be 90 percent for the Class of 2020.

New York produced an estimated 31,978 more graduates in 2009 than 2002 – more than double the improvement of any other state.

While Tennessee led the nation with a 17.8 percentage point gain, New York’s graduation rate improved by 13 percentage points – from 60.5 percent to 73.5 percent. New York and Tennessee were the only states to achieve double-digit gains since the research began in 2002.

The national average in 2009 was a graduation rate of 75.5 percent, a gain of 3.5 percentage points since 2001, according to the report, Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic, Annual Update 2012.

The groups that produced the report – Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, America’s Promise Alliance, and the Alliance for Excellent Education – are leading a so-called “Civic Marshall Plan” to boost graduation rates.

Wisconsin became the first state to achieve the Civic Marshall Plan goal of a 90 percent high school graduation rate, while Vermont is right behind at 89.6 percent.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly claimed that New York is first in spending and either 34th or 38th “in results.” The “results” figure refers to U.S. Census data on the percentage of people age 25 or older who have at least a high school diploma. That percentage – 84.7 percent – is close to the national average of 85.3 percent.