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The Oregon Department of Education on Thursday posted Oregon’s highest-ever recorded graduation rate at 83% for the class of 2025. But the encouraging number comes with a big caveat: The high graduation rates are a consistent outlier to otherwise sobering data around student performance.
That Oregon’s graduation rate does not correlate to student proficiency in core subjects, or high rates of absenteeism, is no secret. It has caught the attention of state officials, who have previously expressed concerns about the discrepancies.
There is hopeful news: The class of 2025’s ninth grade on-track rate—the percentage of freshman students on track to graduate—was 82.8%. That’s much closer to the ultimate graduation rate than the class of 2024, which posted an 81.6% graduation rate but a 73.6% ninth grade on-track rate.
“Graduation changes life trajectories. It often opens doors to college, career and opportunity,” Dr. Charlene Williams, ODE’s director, said at a Tuesday press conference. “At the same time, we want to be clear about what these data actually tell us.”
Until 2019, Oregon required an assessment of essential skills as a graduation requirement. That assessment required students to prove mastery of reading, writing and math through standardized testing or by submitting work samples. But with Senate Bill 744, Oregon suspended assessment of those skills through the 2027–28 academic year.
Williams indicated that ODE officials are reassessing that change. The department at this time does “not anticipate continued extension of that suspension,” she said. If true, a reintroduction of the essential skills exam could alter graduation rates in future years.
Whether a graduation diploma actually signals preparation for life beyond high school is a murky question. Oregon’s largest district, Portland Public Schools, shared data in March that it termed a “post-secondary success rate,” separate from its graduation rate. There was stark contrast in the numbers, too. While PPS’s class of 2024 posted an 84% graduation rate, the district posted a 69.1% post-secondary readiness rate for that cohort. (This year, PPS posted a slightly lower graduation rate, at 82.5%.)
PPS officials measured the likelihood of post-secondary success by checking whether students successfully completed advanced coursework, a career technical education pathway, scored well on standardized tests, or proved bilingualism. Those indicators, district officials reasoned, would indicate a student was well prepared.
When WW asked whether ODE leaders felt a high school diploma from Oregon indicated that student would be successful later in life, Williams said a national study indicated that the state has some of the highest credit requirements in terms of graduation. (Oregon Public Broadcasting did reporting on that study in 2022.) Other studies, Williams said, noted that grade-point average was “a more reliable indicator” of success after high school.
But disconnects persist in other pieces of data, too. Take Oregon Statewide Assessment Results, the state standardized test, for the class of 2025. When tested in the 2023–24 academic year as juniors, 45.2% demonstrated proficiency in English, and 20% demonstrated proficiency in mathematics.
Participation rates for high school students on the OSAS remain a problem. Just 71.5% of juniors that year took the English test, and 68% took the mathematics one.
Still, the class of 2025 was the first cohort since pandemic closures to experience all four years of high school with in-person instruction. Williams also shared that 86.6% of last year’s ninth graders were on track to graduate, signaling some optimism.
