Graduation and Dropout Statistics Annual Report. Report to the Legislature [2016-17]

Under the guidelines of state law, RCW 28A.175.010, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is required to report annually on the educational progress of public school students in grades 7-12. At the direction of the U.S. Department of Education, Washington uses the adjusted cohort graduation calculation to track a single cohort of students over time. This report summarizes the graduation rates as of the 2016-17 school year for the four, five, six, and seven year graduation cohorts. For the Class of 2017 (students who first began 9th grade in 2013-14), the 4-year adjusted cohort graduation rate is 79.3 percent, which is 0.2 percentage points higher than the Class of 2016 graduation rate (79.1 percent). An additional 2,982 students from the Class of 2016 graduated during their fifth year of high school (2016-17) for a total 5-year rate of 82.4 percent. With an adjusted cohort rate of 83.1 percent, the Class of 2015 had an increase of 1.2 percent in their sixth year (2016-17), or 5.0 percent more students graduating after the four year time frame. The Class of 2014 had a rate of 82.9 percent graduating after seven years (2016-17), which is a total of 5.7 percent of students graduating in the extended timeframe. [Appendices A through N, which are not included in this report, are available as electronic files under "Graduation and Dropout Statistics" on OSPI's Data and Reports webpage. For the previous report, "Graduation and Dropout Statistics Annual Report. Report to the Legislature [2015-16]," see ED583135.]