SCHOOLS

Chalkbeat - Until now, the story of how COVID affected who got their high school diploma went something like this: Graduation rates dipped a little for the class of 2021, but recovered the following year. The pandemic contributed to a small, but notable departure from a decade of upward progress.

But a new report paints a more complicated picture. Where a student lived and what policies their school followed during the pandemic affected how likely they were to graduate from high school. When states that normally required a high school exit exam waived that requirement, graduation rates went up. When students spent a greater share of time learning remotely or in a hybrid setup, graduation rates fell. And the longer a district kept school buildings closed in 2021 and 2022, the less likely their students were to graduate on time.

Those are among the findings of a report released Tuesday by a team of researchers from The GRAD Partnership, an initiative led by nine education organizations including the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University and the nonprofit American Institutes for Research.

The report also cautions that the pandemic’s full effects on high school graduation likely haven’t been felt yet, as the children who struggled in middle and elementary school are still working their way toward a diploma. High rates of absenteeism that have persisted since the pandemic represent another “wild card” that could affect future high school graduation rates, researchers write.