Dive Brief:

• Newly-released data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that 82% of American high school seniors graduated in 2013-14, a record-breaking high percentage.
• The percentage has increased steadily over the past four years, with a previous high of 81% reported in February.
• Additionally, the federal government claims that the achievement gap in graduation rates between racially disparate students is also now decreasing.

Dive Insight:

Outgoing education secretary Arne Duncan calls the high a “milestone,” saying in a statement that “as a result many more students will have a better chance of going to college, getting a good job, owning their own home, and supporting a family.” Duncan also noted that the achievement gap progress was “promising” for students of color.

Yet despite the seemingly cheery news, certain gaps aren’t actually progressing.

Students of color are still not graduating from college at the same rate as their white peers, and a recent study from the Education Trust showed that among the 255 schools that improved their graduation rates, “more than 20% didn’t make any progress with underrepresented students at all, and more than half that did still didn't close existing gaps.”

In California’s K-12 classrooms, Common Core test resultsalso prove the existence of the achievement gap. Wealthy students were more than twice as likely to score as proficient on the tests, as compared with poor students, and white and Asian students were also much less likely to score at the bottom — just 18% and 12% did. That's compared to almost half (46%) of black students, 41% of Native American students, and 39% of Latino students.

Further, a June 2015 investigation by NPR also questioned the previously reported 81% high school graduation rate, finding that "...from the district to state level, dubious strategies like mislabeling students, finding ways to remove them from the books, and easing graduation requirements are taking away from real progress made by schools putting in the long-term effort to make real improvements to their grad rates."

Recommended Reading

The Huffington Post: American Kids Are Graduating From High School At Record Rates