St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News) - Minnesota’s high school graduation rate hit a record high of 82.2-percent with the Class of 2016.

A report issued today by the Minnesota Department of Education shows the overall graduation rate rose about one-third of a percentage point from the previous year and was up about five-percentage points when compared to five years ago.

The data also suggests the state is making some progress in closing the so-called achievement gap. Since 2011, the graduation rates for nonwhite students have risen over 13-percentage points. While the graduation rate for black students still lags far behind the 87-percentage rate for white students, it has climbed about 15 percentage points over the past five years and was above 65-percent for the Class of 2016. American Indian students, who did not see any gains during the five-year period preceding 2011, pushed their graduation rate above 50-percent last year, which represented a 10-point improvement over the preceding five years.

The overall graduation rate in the Rochester School District increased by nearly 4-percentage points last year and reached just over 85.5-percent. The 2016 graduation rate for black students was up over 10-percentage points from the previous year at over 76.5-percent, while the graduation rate for Hispanic students shot up over 15 percentage points and was above 70-percent last year.

With the exception of the Rochester Alternative Learning Center, the graduation rates for the city’s public high schools were all above 90-percent. Century High School graduation rate climbed nearly 7-percentage points to almost 93-percent, Mayo’s rate was up about 2-points at 92.5-percent, while John Marshall saw its graduation rate drop from nearly 94-percent in 2015 to just over 90-percent last year. The Alternative Learning Center’s graduation rate was only 53-percent, but that was up almost 9-percentage points from 2015.

 

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