DETROIT – More than 80 percent of Michigan’s high school students graduated in 2016-17, according to data released Wednesday by the Michigan Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI).
That number is up from 79.65 percent in 2015-16. The dropout rate fell slightly to 8.65 percent for the 2016-17 school year, down .26 percent from the 2015-16 rate of 8.91 percent, CEPI reports.
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Here's a look at the class of 2017 graduation rates for 10 Metro Detroit school districts with the most high school students in the state:
- Detroit Public Schools Community District: 78.22 percent
- Utica Community Schools: 93 percent
- Plymouth-Canton Community Schools: 89.47 percent
- Dearborn City School District: 94.69 percent
- Ann Arbor Public Schools: 89.66 percent
- Chippewa Valley Schools: 92.25 percent
- Rochester Community School District: 96.05 percent
- Warren Consolidated Schools: 84.51 percent
- Walled Lake Consolidated Schools: 93.17 percent
- Livonia Public School District: 92.28 percent
CEPI has been calculating these graduation rates for the past 11 years. Here is the center's data showing the statewide four-year trend for on-time, four-year graduation and dropout rates:
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"This is the first time the statewide four-year graduation rate has surpassed 80 percent since we started calculating rates by cohorts eleven years ago," said CEPI Director Tom Howell. "This increase is in line with how the statewide graduation rate has been trending gradually upward."
According to CEPI, it calculates graduation rates by tracking individual student enrollment records from the time they first enroll as ninth-graders. This method, along with concerted efforts by CEPI, school administrators and intermediate school district auditors to account for every student, results in an accurate measure of a school's success in preparing students for college and careers.
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"An 80 percent statewide graduation rate is a new watermark for our schools. They’ve worked hard to steadily improve," said State Superintendent Brian Whiston. "This is another important step in helping Michigan become a Top 10 education state in 10 years. We aren’t there yet, so we need to keep working and moving forward."
Graduation and dropout rates for specific districts can be found on CEPI’s MI School Data website -- www.mischooldata.org. Under the site’s K-12th Grade Student Counts section, visitors can select a school or district or compare one district to another. User-selected settings permit exploring 4-year, 5-year, and 6-year graduation rates by gender, race or ethnicity, or by demographic categories such as economically disadvantaged, English language learners, homeless, migrant, and students with disabilities.