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Attainment – High School Graduation Rate

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The adjusted cohort graduation rate (ACGR) is a graduation metric that follows a “cohort” of first-time 9th graders in a particular school year, and adjusts this number by adding any students who transfer into the cohort after 9th grade and subtracting any students who transfer out, emigrate to another country, or pass away. The ACGR is the percentage of the students in this cohort who graduate within four years. This indicator reports the adjusted cohort graduation rate for the report area compared to state and national rates for the most recently reported school year.

Source

US Department of Education, ED Data Express, 2022-23.
Additional data analysis by CARES.

Source Description

Ed Data Express is a comprehensive platform developed by the U.S. Department of Education to provide easy access to educational data for policymakers, researchers, educators, and the public. The site compiles a wide range of information on student performance, school characteristics, and demographic trends, sourced from key federal data collections like the Common Core of Data (CCD) and the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). Designed to support data-driven decision-making, the platform offers tools for visualizing, analyzing, and comparing data across states, school districts, and subgroups. Ed Data Express aims to promote transparency and equity in education by making critical data readily available to advance the educational outcomes of all students.

Methodology

Graduation rates are acquired for all US school-districts in the United States from US Department of Education (ED) EDData Express 2022-23 data tables. States are required to report graduation data to the US Department of Education under Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Specifically, states are required to report rates based on a cohort method, which would provide a more uniform and accurate measure of the high school graduation rate that improved comparability across states. The cohort graduation rate is defined as “the number of students who graduate in four years with a regular high school diploma divided by the number of students who form the adjusted cohort for the graduating class.” From the beginning of 9th grade (or the earliest high school grade), students who are entering that grade for the first time form a cohort that is “adjusted” by adding any students who subsequently transfer into the cohort and subtracting any students who subsequently transfer out, emigrate to another country, or die.

County-level summaries are calculated by CARES using small-area estimation technique based on the proportion of the population aged 15-19 in each school district/county. The population figures for this calculation are based on data from the 2020 US Decennial Census at the census block geographic level.

For more information please consult the original data through the EDData Express data download web page.

Data Breakouts Available

  • High School Graduation Rate by Year, 2012-13 through 2022-23
  • High School Graduation Rate by Student Race and Ethnicity
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