Grad Nation Reports & Resources

Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Raising High School Graduation Rates

Authored by Civic Enterprises and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, and released annually in partnership with the Alliance for Excellent Education and America’s Promise Alliance, the Building a Grad Nation report examines both progress and challenges toward reaching the GradNation campaign goal of a national on-time graduation rate of 90 percent by the Class of 2020.

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Featured Resources

Where Do We Go Next?

June 23, 2021

New National Data Provide High Schoolers’ Insights. They reflect on a historic school year shaped by remote learning and attention to racial injustice

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Case Study: Creating Effective Youth-Supporting Partnerships

July 15, 2020

In this case study, you will find examples of how the Acceleration sites have brought partner organizations to the table, have established and built on a shared vision, and have utilized data-driven…

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Case Study: Building Responsive Pathways to Graduation and Beyond

July 15, 2020

This brief provides tangible examples of the ways in which the five Acceleration sites are offering and integrating internships, work-based learning, and/or work-readiness education to ensure…

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Case Study: Holistic Approaches to Helping Young People Succeed

July 14, 2020

In this case study, you will find concrete examples of the ways in which these exemplar states and communities are putting people over programs and establishing structures for holistic support for…

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Achieving a 90 Percent Graduation Rate Webinar: Making Effective Work-Based Learning Real for All Students

April 24, 2019

hear from Urban Alliance, which provides underserved high school seniors with training, internships, & mentoring that build the social, emotional, and cognitive skills they need to succeed in…

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Great American High School Campaign report cover

Great American High School: Reforming the Nation’s Remaining Low-Performing High Schools

October 04, 2018

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Putting the lives of young people at the heart of its research

The Center for Promise is the research institute for America's Promise Alliance dedicated to understanding what young people need to thrive and how to create the conditions of success for all young people. It is housed at the Boston University School of Education. The Center provides research that supports the GradNation campaign, including studies of the youth who leave high school without graduating, the barriers they face reconnecting with educational settings, the role of relationships is their lives, and the characteristics of the settings that help them persist to high school graduation and beyond.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CENTER FOR PROMISE

High School Graduation Facts: Ending the Dropout Crisis

Here are some facts on high school graduation rates based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics at the U.S. Department of Education and other sources noted below.

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High School Graduation Fact: Ending the Dropout Crisis

GradNation Community Guidebook

While our country is making progress toward the GradNation goal of a 90 percent graduation rate by 2020, much work remains to get all young people on the path to adult success. To help communities reach that goal, America’s Promise Alliance has updated the successful GradNation Community Guidebook, a research-based toolkit that provides guidance and resources to people and organizations working to raise graduation rates and better support children and youth.

GO TO THE GUIDEBOOK