New report finds Tennessee is bucking the trend of declining high school graduation rates other states are seeing

High school graduation in 2022 rates across the United States. (Grad Partnership, National Center for Education Statistics)

A new report from the Grad Partnership notes that high school graduation rates in Tennessee have remained relatively stable in recent years, compared to 26 states that witnessed declines in high school graduation rates following the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the report, more than 40 percent of districts were categorized as “stable” in terms of high school graduation rates before and after COVID-19, with few gains or losses within student trends. It noted that more than 50 percent of districts in Tennessee, Texas, Hawaii, and Wisconsin were stable in this regard, while districts in New Jersey, Montana, North Dakota, and Alabama were among the states with the most losses. Washington D.C., Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, and California were among the handful of states reporting the most gains in terms of graduation rates.

The report suggested that rates at both the state and district levels varied widely, due to the different lengths of school closures and whether districts had the resources necessary to accommodate sudden shifts to online learning in the early days of the pandemic. However, the national average for high school graduation rates reached a record 86.6 percent in 2022, which could be partly due to changes in graduation requirements in New York and California that waived some courses and exams.

“A closer look at how the pandemic affected graduation rates by district shows that location influenced the impact. Students experienced a wider range of outcomes—fluctuating, stable, or decreasing rates—rather than the straightforward national trend of decline followed by recovery,” the report noted. “This suggests that local understanding and context-specific actions will be required to address declines.”

Moving forward, the report recommended giving schools and district student success teams “easy access to actionable data and human insight in order to get the right supports and experiences to students at the right time.”

It said that for student success systems to be at their most effective, success teams also need organizational structures to pool their insights, and the insights of students and families, to better understand the factors driving student needs and devise effective solutions.

“Currently, it is the exception and not the norm for schools and districts to have both the data and human systems needed to most effectively support their students. Many schools and districts are rich in data, but poor in data integration. They have data systems containing their students’ attendance patterns, behavioral and well-being information, and academic outcomes, but they have no ready means of showing how all these elements combine for a given student,” the report read.

Among other recommendations, the report said education systems should bring together families, youth, K–12, community organizations, higher education, and workforce training organizations at the local level to create “supported pathways to adult success for all youth in their community.”

“High school principals, undergraduate deans of local colleges and [universities], and hiring managers for the largest employers have traditionally not known each other, let alone closely collaborated to create pathways to adult success for the youth in their communities. This needs to change,” the report noted.