Six-year graduation rates for students with behavioral and learning disabilities increased substantially between 2009 and 2019, while rates for cognitive disabilities slightly declined¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2020 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2025: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Students with learning disabilities saw a 27-percentage-point increase in six-year graduation, from 56 percent (2009) to 83 percent (2019), and students with behavioral disabilities rose from 31 percent to 54 percent. → Nagaoka 2020 q2 i? Students with cognitive disabilities had a 2019 six-year graduation rate of 49 percent, slightly lower than the 2009 rate of 52 percent. → Nagaoka 2020

Evidence¶

Nagaoka 2020¶

Nagaoka, J., Mahaffie, S., Usher, A., & Seeskin, A. (2020). The Educational Attainment of Chicago Public Schools Students: 2019. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://toandthrough.uchicago.edu/tool/cps/2019/#/milestones

q2 · i? · associational · r2

Table 4 takeaway comparing six-year graduation rates by disability category for the 2004 and 2014 ninth-grade cohorts. The report uses six-year rather than four-year rates for students with disabilities to reflect IEP timelines. Students with learning disabilities in 2019 completed through options programs at rates similar to other graduates (10 percent vs. 8 percent).

"In 2019, slightly over one-half of students with behavioral disabilities graduated from high school within six years (54 percent), a substantial increase from the 2009 graduation rate of 31 percent."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Access — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Learning Disabilities and Developmental Differences — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Students with disabilities attained postsecondary readiness and success outcomes at about one half to one third the rate of students without disabilities, the largest difference between any student group and its counterpart — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• Graduation rates improved for all racial, ethnic, and economic groups, but racial and ethnic gaps increased while gender, poverty, and disability gaps declined — related
• Within every student category, freshman GPA, course failures, and absences are strongly related to five-year graduation rates, with large drops per half grade point, per additional course failure, and per absence band — related
• CPS students with an IEP related to a learning disability graduated at a rate approaching the district average, while students with an IEP related to another disability graduated at 54.7% — related
• In 2019–20, 71 percent of students with disabilities graduated high school within four years versus 87 percent of all students — related
• CPS graduation rates increased by 22.4 percentage points over 16 years, from 52.4 percent among students who turned 19 in 1998 to 74.8 percent in 2014 — related