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¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2016 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2019: local conditions change quickly

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Graduation rates calculated by age cohort rose 22.4 percentage points between the 1998 and 2014 cohorts, with the largest yearly increases occurring after 2009. → Allensworth 2016

Evidence¶

Allensworth 2016¶

Allensworth, E.M., Healey, K., Gwynne, J.A., & Crespin, R. (2016). High school graduation rates through two decades of district change: The influence of policies, data records, and demographic shifts. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://www.cps.edu/SchoolData/Pages/SchoolData.aspx

q2 · i? · associational · r3

Districtwide trend analysis of CPS administrative records using age-based cohorts (students followed from age 14 to 19) to keep cohorts comparable despite changing grade promotion standards. The report states rates "increased by 22.4 percentage points over the last 16 years."

"Graduation rates have increased by 22.4 percentage points over the last 16 years, from 52.4 percent among students who turned 19 in 1998, to 74.8 percent in 2014."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• CPS high school graduation rates rose from 57 percent to 74 percent between 2006 and 2016 — related
• CPS Freshman OnTrack rates rose from 58 to 89 percent between 2007 and 2017 while graduation rates rose 19 percentage points — related
• CPS four-year high school graduation rose from 57 percent in 2006 to 75 percent in 2017, with options-school graduates adding 4 more percentage points — related
• The rise in diploma earning came from declining dropout rates, which fell from 35 to 11 percent, not from declines in other outcomes — related
• Graduates' academic qualifications improved alongside graduation rates, with ACT scores rising from 16.7 to 18.6 between 2003 and 2014 — related
• Publicly reported school accountability statistics are not useful for measuring achievement trends over time — related
• Graduation by age 18 rose slightly, and adjusting for incoming student composition cuts the increase roughly in half — related
• About 54 percent of Chicago Public Schools students graduated from CPS by age 19 for the 1998 age-13 cohort and by the fourth year for the 1999 freshman cohort — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• The Illinois State Board of Education's graduation-rate method overestimates graduation rates where large numbers of students transfer between schools, as in Chicago — related
• Citywide freshman on-track rates improved from 48 to 58 percent over a decade, with declines tied to increased course-taking — related
• The four-year CPS high school graduation rate rose from 62.3 percent for the 2008 cohort to an all-time high of 83.2 percent for the 2020 cohort — related
• CPS four-year high school graduation rose from 58 percent (2007) to 82 percent (2019), with 18-point growth excluding options school graduates — related
• Chicago's on-track data system was associated with improved high school graduation rates — related
• Chicago graduation rates improved 17 percentage points (57 to 74 percent) between 2006 and 2015 while the ACT average rose from 17.6 to 18.5 — related
• 71 percent of CCSD 8th graders were on track for graduation at the end of 9th grade in 2015/16 — related
• Data coding issues could account for some graduation-rate improvement between 2005 and 2008, but not for improvements in subsequent years — related
• Chicago graduation rates improved steadily since the early 1990s except for the first two cohorts subject to the eighth-grade promotion standard, and age-16 dropout rates declined for the last five years — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Six-year graduation rates for students with behavioral and learning disabilities increased substantially between 2009 and 2019, while rates for cognitive disabilities slightly declined — related