There’s two parts to the graduation puzzle. One is the rate of graduation, or put another way, the rate of “fail to graduate”. Which is presently at 29% in NM which seems pretty high for an institution charged with preparing citizens to take their place as productive and responsible adults in US. But that’s a lot better than the 37% that failed to be prepared in 2011.
The other part of the puzzle is what does “graduation” mean? Are those who do graduate “prepared”? How do we know this? Businesses often say that the recent HS graduates may or may not be employable. And do we know what accounts for increase in graduation rates? Do present rates reflect an increase in educational preparation, or a lowering of the bar to graduation? If it’s a legitimate increase, what accounts for it? Are schools simply doing their job better, or is it something else?
[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/NM-high-school-graduation-rate-hits-all-time-high.pdf”]