Graduation rates dipped in South Florida public schools, post-pandemic testing a factor
High school graduation rates in public schools in Miami-Dade County declined for the first time in five years during the 2021-22 school year, while rates in Broward County decreased for the second consecutive year, the Florida Department of Education said Friday.
Last school year, Miami-Dade public high schools had a graduation rate of 88.2%, a decrease of 1.9 percentage points from 90.1% during the 2020-21 school year, records show. In Broward County, 87.2% of high school seniors in public schools graduated, a decline of 1.9 percentage points from the previous year’s rate of 89.1%. Both districts’ graduation rates include charter school data.
The report, which details the percentage of students who graduate within four years from when they first enroll in ninth grade, does not include students who left to be home-schooled or enrolled in private school.
Similar to the rates in South Florida, the statewide graduation rate also declined. In the 2021-22 school year, 87.3% of the state’s seniors graduated, down 2.8 percentage points from the previous year’s rate of 90.1%.
However, last school year’s rates come with a caveat: The 2021-22 school year was the first year since the COVID-19 pandemic where the statewide results included standardized assessment requirements — historically necessary to graduate — but which had been waived as a graduation requirement during the two years of the pandemic. (According to last school year’s graduation rate report, 7.1% of the 2019-20 graduating class graduated without taking their exams, about 8.5% of the state’s 2020-21 graduating class graduated with the exemption.)
To get a more accurate comparison, or a “true apples-to-apples” scenario, would be to measure state and district graduation rates from the 2018-19 school year, the last year before the pandemic, to the 2021-22 rates, argued the Department of Education.
According to that measurement, the statewide “2021-22 high school graduation rate was 87.3%, an increase of 0.4 percentage points over the 2018-19 pre-pandemic school year,” a news release from the department read. In Miami-Dade, the graduation rate increased 2.6 percentage points — from 85.6% in 2018-19 to 88.2% in 2021-22 — while in Broward County, the rate increased 1 percentage point from 86.2% in the 2018-19 year to 87.2% in 2021-22, records show.
In a news release Friday, Broward County Superintendent Vickie Cartwright said she was proud of the progress the district has made “in recovering from the challenges faced during the pandemic.” Moreover, she added, the results “reflect the efforts of our teachers, administrators and staff, who work tirelessly to engage students in their learning and prepare them for their futures.”
Miami-Dade Superintendent Jose Dotres, shared similar remarks in a news release, attributing the outcome to the “hard work and resiliency of our students, their families, and the collective effort” of the school community. “Despite being impacted by school closures and quarantines during their 10th and 11th-grade years, the perseverance of these students led to a higher graduation rate than in 2019, the most recent graduating class with no COVID-19 impact.”
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Graduation rate disparities
While overall graduation rates decreased from the 2020-21 to 2021-22 school years, the rates vary across race, state data show.
In Broward and Miami-Dade county school districts, Asian students had the highest graduation rate, records show, followed by white students, then Hispanic students, then Black students.
In Broward County, Asian students earned a graduation rate of 94.9%, compared with 93.5% of white students, 86.7% of Hispanic students and 83.2% of Black students. In Miami-Dade, 95.2% of Asian students graduated on time, compared with 94.5% of white students, 88.9% of Hispanic students and 82.4% of Black students, records show. (Indeed, the graduation rate of white, Hispanic and Black students in Miami-Dade schools increased compared to the rates in the 2018-19 school year, according to the district.)
Similar disparities played out statewide, with Asian students earning the highest graduation rate of 96.2%, followed by white students achieving a rate of 90.6%, Hispanic students with 85.9% and Black students with 82%.
Nevertheless, Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Jr. applauded the results in a news release and credited Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to keep schools open during the pandemic.
“These graduation results are the culmination of the hard work and dedication of Florida’s teachers, students, parents and school leaders,” Diaz said.
READ MORE: DeSantis has another opportunity to shape the Miami-Dade School Board. Will it matter?
This story was originally published January 13, 2023 at 6:48 PM.
