Wisconsin High School Graduation Rates Improve, Absenteeism Drops, Milwaukee Lags
Graduation rates highest in history, but still vary starkly by race, location.
School lockers. Photo by Phil Roeder (CC BY 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/tabor-roeder/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Wisconsin high school graduation rates are the highest since the state started its current tracking system in 2010, according to data released Thursday by the Department of Public Instruction.
For the 2023-24 school year, 91.1% of students graduated on time. That’s up from 90.1% in 2022-23.
Still, the four-year graduation rate varies depending on race and location.
While 95% of white students are graduating in four years, the number drops to 85% for Hispanic students and 72% for Black students.
“Although we should celebrate our successes, we should all continue to be concerned about — and work to reduce — the disparities in graduation rates between different groups of students,” State Superintendent Jill Underly said in a statement. “The reality is that students of color and other marginalized students are not doing as well, although those cohorts are also seeing some improvement.”
In Milwaukee Public Schools, 69% of students are graduating in four years. In the Madison Metropolitan School District, 84% graduated on time.
Green Bay Area Public Schools and the Appleton Area School District had about 88% of students graduating on time.
In Racine and Kenosha, 84% and 88%, respectively, of high school seniors are graduating in four years.
The data is part of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s annual certified data release. The release also includes enrollment figures for 2024-25, along with 2023-24 attendance rates.
In 2023, the DPI partnered with Graduation Alliance to re-engage chronically absent and academically at-risk students.
The program, ENGAGE, was funded with federal COVID-19 relief dollars. Gov. Tony Evers’ 2025-27 budget proposal includes $6 million in additional funding to sustain its efforts.
“We need to double-down on making investments for those kids who need it the most,” Underly said. “We should also be concerned that the federal government seems to want to end the collection of disparities data, which would hide these challenges rather than solve them.”
DPI data also showed chronic absenteeism rates fell to 17.7% for the 2023-24 school year, while attendance rates climbed to 92.4%, marking the lowest and highest levels, respectively, since the 2020-21 school year.
But like graduation rates, chronic absenteeism varied depending on location.
The attendance rate is 83% in Milwaukee; 86% in Racine; 89% in Madison and Green Bay; 91% in Kenosha and 93% in Appleton.
Wisconsin graduation rates, absenteeism improve was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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