On-time graduation rates still look grim

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The Notebook‘s upcoming April edition on the city’s continuing dropout crisis will report a 56 percent on-time graduation rate for the class of 2009 (students who entered 9th grade for the first time in 2005). Disappointingly, that’s down one point from the previous year.

But that citywide on-time graduation rate figure does not capture the vast differences in graduation rates among schools, with percentages at Masterman, CAPA, and GAMP in the high 90s, while South Philadelphia and Kensington Culinary have percentages in the 20s.

At 22 of the District’s neighborhood high schools, less than half of what should have been the class of 2009 actually graduated by 2009.

The rates shown here are "cohort graduation rates for the class of 2009, with students attributed to the school where they started 9th grade in 2005.

School Grad. rate
Masterman 99.1%
Creative And Performing Arts 95.5%
GAMP 95.1%
Central 92.9%
H.S. Of Engineering & Science 92.1%
Parkway Northwest 91.4%
Bodine 90.5%
Motivation 89.3%
Girls 86.9%
Lankenau 84.8%
Parkway Center City 84.7%
Phila. Mil. Acad. At Elverson 80.8%
Parkway West 80.7%
Swenson Arts & Technology 80.0%
Saul 75.6%
Lamberton 73.3%
Mastbaum 73.0%
Douglas 73.0%
Robeson 72.9%
Phila Hs For Business & Tech 72.4%
Dobbins 72.2%
Phila. Mil. Acad At Leeds 71.4%
Randolph Tech 70.2%
Bok 68.7%
Northeast 67.6%
Communication Tech 64.9%
Strawberry Mansion 61.7%
Washington 59.8%
Gratz 56.8%
Roxborough 56.4%
Carroll 53.0%
Fels 50.9%
Rhodes 48.5%
Bartram 48.3%
Overbrook 46.6%
West Philadelphia 44.8%
Frankford 44.7%
Lincoln 43.7%
King 43.4%
University City 42.7%
William Penn 42.6%
Vaux 40.6%
Franklin 40.4%
Edison 40.3%
Furness 39.7%
Kensington CAPA 39.7%
Sayre 39.0%
Olney West 37.0%
Fitzsimons 36.9%
Kensington Business 36.8%
Germantown 36.4%
Olney East 36.4%
South Philadelphia 29.2%
Kensington Culinary 26.4%
Widener Memorial School 22.7%