Regents 2008 Board Report

High School Graduation Rates

Graduation rates are improving for most groups of students, and yet far too many students still do not graduate from high school. However, we can build upon the encouraging gains to get even better results.

Here are some of the encouraging gains. Results improve in each successive cohort. Persistence pays off. Many students, particularly students of color, graduate after a fifth and even a sixth year of high school. School leaders have devised practices that are enabling more to graduate, and in the gains from June to August, we can see that their efforts during summer school appear to be working. More students are graduating with a Regents diploma. And there has been some narrowing of the gap. Here are the details:

• Statewide, almost 69% of students who started 9th grade in 2003 had graduated after 4 years, by June 2007. This is almost 3 percentage points higher than for students two years before. 71% of students who started 9th grade in 2003 had graduated by August 2007.
• The four-year graduation rate for black students increased from 45% to 51% between 2005 and 2007. More black students are staying in school.
• The four-year graduation rate for Hispanic students increased from 42% to 47% between 2005 and 2007. More Hispanic students are staying in school.
• The number of students with disabilities who took and passed each Regents exam required for graduation increased.