CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Mayor Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools CEO Dr. Janice Jackson announced Friday have set a new record high five-year graduation rate of 82.5 percent, which was propelled by the academic progress of Latinx students.
Over the last decade, Chicago’s graduation rate has risen nearly 27 percentage points from 2010 when only 55.8 percent of CPS students earned a diploma.
"I could not be more proud of our young people, our teachers, counselors, and school leaders, as well as all the community partners that have worked with us to help us get here today," she said. "This most exciting aspect of today's news is the faces behind these numbers."
The racial groups making up the largest percentage of CPS students, Latinx students and African American students, both saw significant increases over 2019 with a 2.2 percentage point increase (from 82.3 percent to 84.5 percent) for Latinx students and 1.2 percentage point increase (from 76.8 percent to 78 percent) for African American students. Since 2017, the percentage of African American students earning a diploma has increased by 4 percentage points, which is the highest increase among all major racial groups in the district during that time period.
Improvements in the graduation rate at neighborhood schools, charter schools, and selective enrollment schools also contributed to the district’s record-high graduation rate, Dr. Jackson said.
The top ten schools with the highest five-year graduation rates are: Whitney Young, Northside College Prep, Walter Payton, Lane Tech, Jones College Prep, Hancock High School, Perspectives - Joslin High School, Back of the Yards, Westinghouse, and Williams High School.
"Finally, after careful consultation with our principals over a number of years, we were able to make several process improvements to our graduation rate methodology, to better represent the work that is happening in our schools," she said.
For instance, Dr. Jackson said, diverse learners who remain in school after meeting graduation requirements and earning a diploma will now count towards that school's graduation rate. The changes also eliminate duplicate students in freshman cohorts, ensure students are included in the correct cohort, and more.
Since 2015, the district has utilized a conservative methodology that has remained relatively unchanged, and the improvements are a result of years of principal feedback that identified necessary modifications to more accurately determine the district’s graduation rate. Detailed descriptions of methodology changes can be found here.
This year, the district also achieved the lowest one-year dropout rate on record with a rate of 5.6 percent, which is a decrease from 6.0 percent in 2019. The one-year dropout rate measures the percent of students who drop out over the course of a given year, as opposed to the cohort dropout rate, which reflects multiple years and aligns with the annual cohort graduation rate.
These improvements were largely driven by African American students, who had a decrease of 0.9 percentage points since 2019 (from 8.1 percent to 7.2 percent in 2020), with African American males seeing a decrease of one percentage point (from 9.0 percent to 8.0 percent in 2020), the largest of any other demographic group. Encouraging trends were also seen among diverse learners, who had a 1.1 percentage point decrease compared to last year (from 7.7 percent to 6.6 percent in 2020).
As opposed to the cohort graduation rate and cohort dropout rate, which are multi-year metrics of the same group of students, one-year dropout is used to gather an understanding of how high schools are supporting students and working to prevent students from dropping out over the course of a single school year, CPS said in a statement.
"Today's news provides the perfect note of optimism as we start a new school year. Starting Tuesday, it will be our job to help ensure that CPS students remain on track and we build on this momentum. We will do this by making sure our students have access to a rigorous high-quality education. We are committed to making sure learning at home feels as normal as any other school experience," Dr. Jackson said. "Assignments will be graded. Attendance will be taken and students should expect to be held to the same high standards that they receive during in-person instruction."
"We are here to help," Dr. Jackson said. "Even in the midst of a public health emergency, we will do everything in our power to make sure Chicago's children have access to a high-quality education. Our commitment and goals remain the same. We are looking forward to the start of another successful school year and I want to thank all of our partners that have played a role in helping our kids become successful."
"That is one of the greatest things that drives me every single day as mayor is thinking about the purpose, the promise, and the obligation that we owe to our young people to see their eyes light up when they see their passion and they are able to see their truth. There is nothing greater for me as a mayor than to be part of seeing that experience and how our young people can blossom and bloom. So onward we go into this next school year with great excitement and enthusiasm for the possibilities that it brings."
Chicago Public Schools serves 355,000 students in 638 schools. It is the nation’s third-largest school district.