Education

Four-year graduation rate creeps up at Anchorage School District

About eight in 10 Anchorage high school students in the Class of 2017 graduated in four years, a very slight increase from last year, according to preliminary data from the Anchorage School District.

While the school district saw small gains in its district-wide four-year graduation rate — from 79.7 percent in 2016 to 81.4 percent in 2017 — Anchorage Schools Superintendent Deena Bishop praised the larger jumps in graduation rates for some minority populations.

"That's closing the gap," she said in an interview Friday.

The four-year graduation rate for Alaska Native and American Indian students increased from 55.5 percent in 2016 to 63.2 percent in 2017, while 71 percent of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students in the Class of 2016 graduated in four years compared to 78.3 percent in the Class of 2017.

The four-year graduation rate for Hispanic students increased from 76.1 percent in 2016 to 81.2 percent in 2017 and the graduation rate for African-American students improved by about 5 percentage points, jumping from 73.9 percent in 2016 to 78.8 percent in 2017.

Other student groups saw smaller gains. The four-year graduation rate for white students increased from 85.2 percent last year to 85.8 percent in 2017 and 87 percent of Asian students in the Class of 2016 graduated in four years compared to 88.7 percent in the Class of 2017.

"I'm really happy that our graduation rates are going up holistically," said Kersten Johnson, senior director of secondary education at the Anchorage School District. "When I started in the district, graduation rates were in the 50 and 60 percent range."

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Johnson, who started working for the district more than 15 years ago, said Anchorage principals were asked last year to develop school plans that, in part, focused on increasing graduation rates for subgroups of students who weren't showing as much improvement as their peers.

"Really what it comes down to is just looking at individual kids and what motivates the kids and what gets them to graduation," she said.

Not all subgroups showed improvement in graduation rates this year, according to district data.

The four-year graduation rate for students who identified as "two or more races" fell from 80.1 percent in 2016 to 75.5 percent in 2017. The percent of migrant students graduating in four years decreased from 75.3 percent in 2016 to 70.5 percent in 2017, while students with limited English proficiency had their four-year graduation rates drop slightly from 61.4 percent to 59.5 percent.

More female than male students in the Class of 2017 graduated in four years, with rates at 85.3 percent and 77.9 percent, respectively.

Between 2016 and 2017, low-income students had their four-year graduation rate increase by nearly 5 percentage points, to 74.8 percent, and students with disabilities also had their four-year graduation rate increase by about 5 percentage points, to 56.2 percent.

[More than half of Alaska's public school students failed to meet standards on 2017 statewide tests]

Students who didn't graduate in four years may have dropped out, needed more time to earn credits or pursued a GED instead of a high school diploma, Johnson said.

Johnson said principals' methods to boost graduation rates varied, from credit recovery programs to having older students mentor younger ones.

Sean Prince, Bartlett High principal, said his school focused on decreasing "F grades" and increasing attendance — making sure staff regularly called the parents of students not showing up to class. He also believed the school was starting to see the impacts of the football team requiring study hall for players with certain grades.

"The team touches an eighth of our population," he said.

Alaska's 2016-17 statewide graduation rate for Alaska has yet to be released. The year before, 76.1 percent of students in Alaska's Class of 2016 graduated in four years. Nationwide, 83 percent of students graduated in four years in 2014-15 — the latest data available from the National Center for Education Statistics.

While Alaska's statewide graduation rate saw a boost after the Alaska Legislature eliminated the state's high school exit exam in 2014, Johnson said she didn't believe the Anchorage School District's more recent graduation rate increases were related to any decreases in expectations.

"I actually think that graduating from high school now is harder than it probably ever has been," Johnson said.

Tegan Hanlon

Tegan Hanlon was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News between 2013 and 2019. She now reports for Alaska Public Media.

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