High school graduation rate bounces back for MN, falls again in St. Paul

Josh Verges, Pioneer Press
Updated ·2 min read

The four-year high school graduation rate fell in St. Paul Public Schools for a second consecutive year while the state overall saw slight improvement.

The class of 2022 spent the last months of their sophomore year at home because of the coronavirus pandemic and endured major disruptions as juniors. Yet, 83.8 percent of the state’s public school students graduated on-time – a year-over-year improvement of .3 percentage points after a .5-point drop in 2021.

Black students and those receiving special-education services posted the largest gains, although those groups still graduate at rates well below average.

“Our students and our educators and the school communities persevered through these challenging times,” Education Commissioner Willie Jett said Tuesday.

Jett said huge amounts of pandemic aid from the federal government helped keep students on track. That money soon will be gone, but state lawmakers are expected to significantly increase state funding for education in the coming biennium.

The graduation data released Tuesday showed a four-year high in dropouts, at 4.5 percent of the class, along with a higher share of students – 4.1 percent – who disappeared without informing their schools.

Jett said the high number of students in the “unknown” category could reflect families that were in transition during the pandemic. That group often includes students who moved out of state or transferred to a private school.

While Minnesota graduation rates held fairly steady through the pandemic, scores on state math and reading tests plunged.

Jett said he values the tests but puts more stock in graduation.

“When a student begins their school career, it’s our job to catapult them into something better for their life. That’s our end goal,” he said. “I want to see children graduate.”

St. Paul

St. Paul’s class of 2022 posted a 75.4 percent four-year graduation rate, down from 76 percent in 2021 and 78.3 percent the year before that.

Like the rest of the state, they saw improvement among Black and special-education students. But completion rates for white students dropped by 2 points.

“I am heartened to see that some of the students that we have invested a lot of attention and resources in … are making great strides toward graduating in four years,” Superintendent Joe Gothard said in a news release.

St. Paul took aggressive steps during the pandemic to protect high school students from falling behind. Schools changed failing grades to passing after buildings closed in spring 2020 and took a similar step that fall, and the traditional high schools started in-house credit recovery programs.

St. Paul also reduced the number of credits needed to graduate, starting with the 2022 class.

Even so, St. Paul saw its graduation rate fall behind Minneapolis Public Schools last year. Minneapolis was 11 percentage points behind St. Paul as recently as 2017 but has been steadily gaining.

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