CMS graduation rate is dropping while other NC districts rise. But officials aren’t worried

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is an outlier among the state’s largest public school districts: Its graduation rate continues to decline from a peak in 2016 as others improve.

CMS officials aren’t too concerned.

Last year, the four-year graduation rate for CMS students was lower than the rates at four other large, metropolitan school districts in the state, according to N.C. Department of Public Instruction data.

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Fewer than 83% of CMS students graduated on time last year, the lowest percentage since the 2012-13 school year, data show. It’s also about seven percentage points less than its recent peak in 2016, when 89.6% of CMS students graduated after four years.

Data isn’t yet available for seniors receiving their diplomas now.

Meanwhile, the four-year graduation rate for Wake County Schools, the state’s largest district, is trending in the opposite direction, topping 89% each of the past five years, according to a Charlotte Observer analysis. In Guilford County Schools, the third largest district in the state, the graduation rate was 91% in 2023-2024. And the trend is repeated in Cumberland and Forsyth counties: public school system graduation rates are generally improving.

The state averaged a high school graduation rate of 87% last year.

The last time CMS’s grad rate topped the state average was in 2017, when CMS had a grad rate of 89%, while the state average was 87%.

The graduation rate for 2024 hasn’t been released yet, but rates will probably take a dip all around the state, due to so many students having to repeat their freshman year post-pandemic. One in six high school freshmen in North Carolina did not advance to tenth grade after the 2020-21 school year.

As for CMS, school board members say they’re confident new leadership under Superintendent Crystal Hill will change the trend. And a district statement to The Charlotte Observer called efforts to turn things around “intentional and robust.”

Causes behind CMS graduation rate drop

Graduation rates in CMS took a big dip after 2017 partly because the state changed the rules.

Prior to 2018, high school students who fell behind and switched schools didn’t count toward either school’s tally. A school receiving a student in the middle of their high school career shouldn’t be held accountable for getting that teen across the finish line on time, according to the state’s reasoning. But from 2018 on, the school where a student completes senior year must count that student in its total, even if they just spent one year there.

However, these new rules applied to the whole state, and while other districts saw a graduation rate decrease, CMS was the only district among the five biggest that took a steep decline.

In 2019, the district also saw an end to Project LIFT, a six-year, $55-million program to improve student performance and close the achievement gap in several of Charlotte’s lowest-performing schools. It produced some promising results, including increasing the graduation rate at West Charlotte High School by 30%.

A major cause of dropouts nationwide is chronic absenteeism — an issue CMS is familiar with. A student is considered “chronically absent” if they miss 10% of school days or more.

“It’s a state issue and a national issue right now that really got highlighted during the pandemic,” said Gina Zhang, research and data analysis manager for MyFutureNC, a nonprofit education advocacy group.

In CMS, the chronic absenteeism rate was in-line with the state average at 31%.

“Dropouts tend to have a truancy issue,” said Arthur Griffin, a Mecklenburg County commissioner and former CMS school board chair. “They miss school, and then they don’t do well in classes, and then they eventually withdraw.”

Griffin wants district leaders to analyze which students tend to drop out and then put interventions in place to support those students.

“We can fix this problem, but we need to take the time to look at the anatomy of a dropout,” he said.

In CMS, Hispanic students, many of whom are English language learners, have a graduation rate of 71% – around 12% below the district average – and that population of students is rapidly increasing. At the end of 2023, Hispanic students accounted for 31% of the district’s total enrollment.

“Language can be a real barrier for a lot of Hispanic students since, even though they grow up here, some of them may not speak English at home,” said Zhang. “They often are second language learners or may have some other challenges like being disabled or economically disadvantaged. So these mixed factors can make it more difficult for these students to perform at the same level as peers who don’t have these barriers.”

What’s next

“Efforts to increase the graduation rate in CMS have been intentional and robust this school year,” a district spokesperson told the Observer.

It includes increased student progress monitoring and more support for school counselors.

Next year, the district plans to add quarterly student progress monitoring and increased graduation support for multilingual students.

CMS Board Vice Chair Dee Rankin said the downward trend in graduation rates over the past few years is slight enough that it’s not a major concern.

“It hasn’t been a drastic change, though it has been a slight decline,” he said.

He’s confident that the rate will improve under the district’s new superintendent.

“I think that with the leadership we have in place now, there are strategies to improve the graduation rate across the board for all of our students,” Rankin told the Observer.

Griffin isn’t so sure.

“The trend is troubling,” he said. “We’re losing far too many of our students to dropping out in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, but more specifically, there doesn’t appear to be a system of accountability.”

Griffin pointed to the fact that raising the graduation rate is not explicitly part of the district’s new goals going into effect in October.

“I don’t know if they even have a graduation rate standard since that’s not part of their goals,” he said.

What are CMS’ goals?

One of the district’s new goals is to increase the percent of rising seniors on track to graduate enrolled, enlisted or employed. The other three goals address literacy and math scores.

Rankin contends that the graduation rate also will improve by improving student outcomes overall.

“It’s my job as a board member to monitor our progress throughout the year and make sure we’re staying aligned with our strategic plan,” Rankin said. “I’m sure if we do those things in an effective manner that we will see an increase in our graduation rate and our student outcomes as well.”

Superintendent Crystal Hill indicated at a board meeting last month CMS will improve its performance monitoring efforts next school year by assessing progress of various student demographic groups. This may help the district identify needs and, hopefully, close a persistent achievement gap in test scores between Black and Latino students and their peers.

CMS also increased monitoring of high schoolers’ performance in general this year, including assessing how high school students are performing prior to the end-of-course exam. That already occurs for elementary and middle schoolers.

Hill will announce her five-year strategic plan in mid-June.

The Observer made multiple requests to speak with district leadership, but CMS said no one was available for an interview.