Baltimore City students are graduating at the lowest rate in the state. But the district’s rates are also improving more than the state’s.
In a presentation to the school board Tuesday, city leaders said that overall graduation rates and those for select student groups increased by around two percentage points — while statewide rates declined, or increased by a smaller margin.
“Graduation rates are not easy to move,” said Theresa Jones, the city’s chief achievement and accountability officer. “So this gives us a sense of that accelerated rate of improvement that we’re seeing, but certainly not to negate the fact that there’s still a lot of really important work to do to get more and more of our students across the finish line.”
Just over 70% of Baltimore City high schoolers graduated last spring, compared to 85.8% statewide. That represents a 1.9-percentage-point increase for the city district, and a half-percentage-point decrease for the state.
