New Mexico improves graduation rate 15 percentage points in five years
State improves at one of fastest rates in US
Las Cruces Bulletin
By Lindsey Anderson
June 5th, 2014
LAS CRUCES >> New Mexico’s public high school graduation rate has improved at one of the fastest rates into the country, according to a new Education Week report.
New Mexico’s four-year graduation rate rose 15 percentage points from 2007 to 2012, according to the report in the national newspaper covering education.
In 2007, 59 percent of students earned a high school diploma in four years. Five years later, 74 percent of students earned diplomas on time.
Only the District of Columbia made greater strides, jumping 16 percentage points to 71 percent of students graduating on time, according to the report.
“It goes to show that what we’re doing — we’re on the right track,” Gov. Susana Martinez said at a campaign event Thursday. “… We raised the bar.”
New Mexico still falls toward the bottom of the pack nationwide, however. Only Georgia, Mississippi and Nevada reported lower rates than New Mexico’s.
The national average four-year graduation rate is 81 percent.
Education has been a crux of Martinez’s tenure, including implementing letter grades for schools, establishing teacher evaluations based on student achievement and her failed effort to hold back students who fail to read proficiently in third grade.
Many of the measures have drawn ire, especially as they increasingly rely on standardized tests.
The Education Week report looks at only one of many ways of calculating graduation rates.
The report calculates “average freshman graduation rate,” which looks at the count of students by grade and the overall diploma count. The measure is slightly less accurate than looking at the “average cohort graduation rate,” which takes into account students moving into and out of the district.
New Mexico’s cohort rate was 70 percent for 2012, four percentage points lower than the freshman rate.