State Education Department Releases 2012 Cohort High School Graduation Rates

The New York State Education Department today released high school graduation rates for the 2012 cohort, students who entered 9th grade in 2012. The overall graduation rate increased to 79.4 percent, up 1.3 percentage points from 78.1 percent for the 2011 cohort. The 2012 cohort graduation rate is more than 12 percentage points higher than it was a decade earlier, when the 2002 cohort graduation rate was 67.2 percent. 

When August graduates are included, the 2012 cohort graduation rate increased to 81.4 percent, which exceeds the goal established for federal accountability in 2009 to have 80 percent of students graduate by August of their fourth year in high school. Despite this milestone, significant achievement gaps exist. 

This year’s graduation rate improved for each of the state’s Big 5 city school districts, black and Hispanic students and students with disabilities. While the graduation rate declined for current English language learners (ELLs), it increased for Ever ELL students.

"While the state’s overall graduation rate went up slightly, we must find more effective ways to address the achievement gaps that continue to impact far too many of our children - particularly those students for whom English is not their first language," Board of Regents Chancellor Betty A. Rosa said. "If enacted, the Regents 2017-18 State Aid proposal will help address these gaps in achievement by significantly increasing Foundation Aid funding, expanding and consolidating the state's Universal Pre-K programs, better supporting programs for students who are learning English, increasing funding to support College and Career Pathways, and building upon existing teacher and principal professional development initiatives."

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said, “While the upward trend in New York State’s graduation rates continues, there is still much work to do.  The Regents and I are committed to providing the resources and support to schools statewide to prepare students for the next phase in their lives. It’s important for schools to offer multiple pathways to earn a high school diploma as well as career and technical programs. Similarly, we must help enable our struggling schools to improve outcomes for their students.” 

Need/ Resource Group 2012 Cohort Graduation Rate Data (through June 2016)

Graduation rates reported by the Big 5 City School Districts all surpassed the statewide growth of 1.3 percentage points.

The charter school graduation rate continued to improve, from a rate of 65.2 percent for the 2011 cohort to 71 percent for the 2012 cohort. While students in charters are a small portion of the overall cohort, 1.8 percent for the 2012 cohort, the number of cohort students enrolled in charters schools is growing, up 47 percent from the 2010 cohort.

Cohort Graduation Rates by Race/ Ethnicity

There remains a large achievement gap in graduation rates of more than 20 percentage points for black and Hispanic students when compared to their white peers, even though the gap has narrowed by approximately 5 percentage points over the past two years.

Cohort Graduation Rates for English Language Learners

Students once identified as English language learners who were previously served in bilingual and English as a New Language programs (“ever ELLs”) continue to show strong progress, improving from a 77.7 percent graduation rate for the 2011 cohort to 81.6 percent for the 2012 cohort – outpacing the statewide rate of 79.4 percent.

The graduation rate for “current ELLs” (students who were identified as ELLs during the school year of their last enrollment) continues to lag far behind the statewide rate, with only 26.6 percent of the 2012 cohort graduating on time – down 7.2 percentage points from the 2011 cohort rate of 33.8 percent. Much of the statewide decline can be attributed to New York City’s performance, where the graduation rate for current ELLs declined by 9.3 points, from 36.5 percent for the 2011 cohort to 27.2 percent for the 2012 cohort.

Graduation Rate for Students with Disabilities & By Gender

The graduation rate for students with disabilities improved this year, moving from 49.8 percent for the 2011 cohort to 52.4 percent for the 2012 cohort. Female students continued to graduate at a higher rate than their male peers, with graduation rates for the 2012 cohort at 83.2 percent and 75.7 percent, respectively.

Cohort Dropout Rates

The percentage of students who dropped out of school remained relatively flat this year, declining from 6.6 percent for the 2011 cohort to 6.4 percent for the 2012 cohort. Despite this small overall improvement, the percentage of ELL students statewide who dropped out increased by 5.1 percentage points from 22.9 to 28 percent from last year’s cohort to this year’s. Again, the increase was largely driven by New York City, where dropout rates increased by 5.4 percentage points among ELLs. The dropout rate for students with disabilities remained relatively flat at 12.2 percent for the 2012 cohort, a decrease of half a percentage point from last year.

Cohort 4, 5 & 6-Year Graduation Rates

As in previous years, the data show that persistence pays off. For the 2010 statewide cohort, the four-year graduation rate was 76.4 percent; students continuing to a fifth year improved the rate to 82.4 percent; and a sixth year improved the rate even further, to 84 percent. ELL students demonstrated significant increases in graduation rates given additional time and continued services. For the 2010 cohort, the four-year ELL graduation rate was 31.2 percent; the five-year rate rose to 44 percent; and the six-year rate reached 48.3 percent.  The 2011 cohort five-year graduation rate increased by 5 percentage points to 83.5 percent, up from the four-year graduation rate of 78.1 percent. For the 2011 cohort, the four-year ELL graduation rate was 33.8 percent and the five-year rate rose to 44.8 percent.

Multiple Pathways to Graduation

The Board of Regents is committed to providing multiple pathways for students to earn a regular high school diploma, and the Board has approved regulations to establish multiple, comparably rigorous assessment pathways to graduation for all students. By offering these multiple pathways, the Board recognizes the importance of engaging students in rigorous and relevant academic programs. Specifically, Regents-approved regulations recognize students’ interests in the Arts, Biliteracy, Career/Technical Education, Humanities and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) by allowing an approved pathway assessment to meet the students’ graduation requirements; see here for more information about these Multiple Pathways: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/multiple-pathways/.

Additionally, at its June 2016 meeting, the Board of Regents permanently approved regulations to establish a new Career Development Occupational Studies (CDOS) graduation pathway for all students. The CDOS Commencement Credential certifies that a student has the standards-based knowledge and skills necessary for entry-level employment. Previously, only students with disabilities could exit school with a New York State CDOS Commencement Credential. The newly adopted regulations expand to all students the opportunity to earn the CDOS Commencement Credential.

In 2016 the Board of Regents also acted: (1) to make more students eligible for the appeal process, and (2) to enable superintendents to make a local determination as to the academic proficiency of certain students with disabilities seeking to graduate with a local diploma.

For the 2016-17 school year, the Department implemented a new system to collect and report data on the number of students who earn a diploma through one of the established alternative pathways to graduation, through the appeal process and through a local superintendent’s determination. These graduates are included within the overall graduation rate numbers announced today.

Data Collection & Verification

The graduation data is reported by educational institutions to SED throughout the school year. The cohort 2012 graduation rate data was available for verification until the close of the state data warehouse in August 2016. District superintendents certified the data in September 2016.  For more specific data points and for school- and district-level graduation data, visit the Department’s public data site at http://data.nysed.gov/. To view a PowerPoint with additional data, visit: http://bit.ly/2k8qlPi.

Conference Call with Commissioner Elia:

Commissioner Elia will conduct a conference call for reporters at 11:30am with a PowerPoint presentation that can be joined by webinar at the following link: http://bit.ly/2k8dYD4.  For call-in information, please contact the NYSED Office of Communications via email at: NYSEDCommunications@nysed.gov .

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