State's Four-Year Graduation Rate Rises Again

The Patrick-Murray Administration and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education announced that for the fourth year in a row, the state's four-year graduation rate increased in 2010, with more than 82 percent of seniors graduating within four years.

According to a statewide report released by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 82.1 percent of the 76,308 students in the 2010 cohort graduated within four years, an increase of 0.6 percentage points from 2009, 0.9 percentage points from 2008, 1.2 percentage points from 2007, and 2.2 percentage points from 2006. A cohort is comprised of students who entered high school as ninth-graders or who transferred into the same cohort at any time over high school.

"We continue to make important strides in reaching our goal to ensure that all students graduate from high school ready for success in higher education, the workforce, and life," said Gov. Deval Patrick. "(This) is another signal of the perseverance and commitment to success that embodies the Commonwealth's public schools."

"Four consecutive years of increasing our graduation rates is a great accomplishment for our students and their teachers," said Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray. "Ensuring a high graduation rate will pay big dividends for our students, and is vital for our future workforce and economic infrastructure."

State officials also announced that the annual dropout rate for 2009-10 was unchanged from the previous year, marking the second year in a row that the percent of high school students dropping out of school was less than 3 percent. This is the lowest dropout rate in the last two decades. Last year, 8,296 students (2.9 percent) out of 290,502 high school students in grades nine to 12 dropped out of school during the 2009-10 school year.

"In today's world a high school diploma is a minimum qualification," said Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester. "Reducing the dropout rate is complex and challenging work. Our award of a $15 million grant and the expansion of the early warning indicator index to all school districts will assist local school leaders in identifying and supporting students that may be at risk of not graduating on time from high school."