Massachusetts Announces Four-Year Graduation Rate Improved for 8th Consecutive Year

"We have a tremendous opportunity to continue Massachusetts' reputation as a global education leader," said Governor Charlie Baker, "and I am very proud of all of our educational professionals and students whose hard work is paying off. It is up to us to learn by their example to further improve our education system, and to do all we can to ensure Massachusetts has the postsecondary education and career opportunities that allow our students to stay and be successful in the Commonwealth."

"The remarkable progress we have seen since 2007 is a tribute to the teachers, counselors and administrators who are going the extra mile to identify, support, and engage students who are at risk," said Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Mitchell D. Chester. "In today's world, where postsecondary education increasingly is a requirement for earning a livable wage, failing to earn a high school diploma robs students of a better future."

According to the data released this year, 86.1 percent of the 73,168 students in the 2014 cohort graduated within four years, an increase of 1.1 percentage points from the 2013 cohort and an increase of 6.2 percentage points from 2006 cohort, when the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education first began calculating the cohort graduation rate. A cohort is comprised of students who entered high school as ninth graders or who transferred into the same cohort at any time during high school. The dropout reduction — from 3.8 percent (2006-07) to 2.0 percent (2013-14) — resulted in about half as many students dropping out in 2013-14 (5,746) as in 2006-07, when 11,436 students dropped out of school.

Five-hundred and two fewer students dropped out in 2013-14 than in 2012-13, and 5,690 fewer students dropped out than in 2006-07, when the annual dropout rate was at a high mark of 3.8 percent.

In October 2009, when the state's annual dropout rate was more than 3 percent, the Massachusetts Graduation and Dropout Prevention and Recovery Commission made a number of recommendations to dramatically reduce that rate. A number of those recommendations have been fulfilled, including expansion of what is now called the Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS) to make it available to all districts for grades 1–12 and reformed discipline laws to provide continued education for suspended and expelled students. The state, using federal High School Graduation Initiative funds, has also created a dropout prevention and recovery program, which was another of the commission's recommendations.

Most major subgroups improved their four-year graduation rates compared to the previous year. The largest gains were made by African-American males (+3.1 percentage points, from 67.7 percent for the 2013 cohort to 70.8 for the 2014 cohort), Hispanic students (+2.4 percentage points, from 66.8 to 69.2 percent), and students from low-income families (+2.5 percentage points, from 73.6 to 75.5 percent). Improvements for other major subgroups were: students with disabilities: +1.3, from 67.8 to 69.1 percent; limited English proficient students: +0.4, from 63.5 to 63.9 percent, African-American students overall: +1.1, from 73.8 to 74.9 percent; Asian students: +1.5, 90.6 to 92.1 percent; white students: +0.8, from 90.1 to 90.9 percent; female students: +0.9, from 88.1 to 89.0 percent; and male students: +1.3, from 82.1 to 83.4 percent.

In November 2010, the Commonwealth was awarded a five-year, $15 million federal grant through the federal High School Graduation Initiative to support statewide and local efforts for high school dropout prevention, intervention and recovery. The Massachusetts initiative, called MassGrad, has supported districts and schools with the highest dropout rates through a multifaceted approach that includes a Dropout Prevention & Recovery Work Group open to all districts, as well as start-up funding to support a range of innovative programming to best meet the needs of student most likely to dropout, or to reengage students who previously left school. That innovative programming has included graduation coaches, work and service-based learning opportunities, community coalitions, high school pathways such as the Gateway to College early college model, credit recovery options, and social-emotional supports. The 2014-15 school year is the final year of federal funding for this initiative.

Over the past five years, the urban school districts that have made the largest gains in reducing the number of dropouts (2009-10 and 2013-14) included:

• Boston had 342 fewer students drop out in 2013-14 than in 2009-10 (1.5 percentage point improvement, from 6.8 to 5.3 percent);
• Springfield had 236 fewer students drop out in 2013-14 than in 2009-2010 (3.3 percentage point improvement, from 10.5 to 7.2 percent);
• Lawrence had 151 fewer students drop out in 2013-14 than in 2009-10 (4.8 percentage point improvement, from 9.4 to 4.6 percent);
• New Bedford had 106 fewer students drop out in 2013 than in 2009-10 (2.9 percentage point improvement, from 8.1 to 5.2 percent); and
• Worcester had 95 fewer students drop out in 2013-14 than in 2009-10 (1.4 percentage point improvement, from 3.8 to 2.4 percent).

Graduation rate data is online at Graduation Rates and Graduation Rate Report (District) for All Students. For additional information on the annual dropout rate, including school and district numbers, look online at Dropout Rates.