Members of 2022 Merrillville High School graduating class

Drill down on Black and Hispanics in Indiana's graduating Class of 2022

Contributed By: The 411 News

One of the numbers in the IDOE’s report on Indiana’s graduating Class of 2022 shows that 86.61 percent or 73,180 of the state’s 84,491 senior classmen obtained their high school diploma.

The Indiana Department of Education report looks at every traditional public, charter, and private high school in the state, breaking down the graduates by race, ethnicity, and gender. The report goes deeper into who those graduates are – whether their meals are paid or free, English language or non-English language learners, general or special education students.

“Graduating high school is an important milestone as students transition to their next step, whether that’s employment, enrollment or enlistment leading to service,” said Dr. Katie Jenner, Indiana Secretary of Education.

A spreadsheet with statewide, corporation- and school-level graduation data is available for download here

Overall, Jenner said, the statewide graduation rate held relatively steady, but there were key areas of success in the 2022 graduation data:

Statewide, graduation rates increased for Black and Hispanic students.

Black students went from 77.05% in 2021 to 77.52% in 2022. That is far below the statewide graduation rate of 86.61%.

Hispanic students are inching closer to the state rate, rising from 82.66% in 2021 to 83.86% in 2022.

Close to home, Blacks and Hispanics flipped the statewide graduation rate in some districts. Merrillville High School had a 93.37% graduation rate for Blacks and 90.29% for Hispanics. Lake Central High School graduated 91.18% of its Black seniors and 95.86% of its Hispanic seniors.

21st Century Charter, in Gary, had a 94.05% graduation rate for Blacks.

The IDOE report shows that charter schools have the lowest graduation rate – 47.66%. Of the state’s 5,575 charter high school seniors in 2022, only 2,657 graduated.

In majority Black and Hispanic high schools in Lake County’s urban core, graduation rates remain below the statewide rate. Hammond Central had a 75.78% graduation rate; Hammond Morton had a 60.48% graduation rate. East Chicago Central had a 66% graduation rate. Gary’s West Side Leadership Academy had a 79.08% graduation rate, up from 66.67% in 2021.

Private, mostly faith-based schools have the highest graduation rate, at 88.86%, and some of them reach the 100% level. There were 4,720 private high school seniors in the Class of 2022, 4,194 graduated.

Two schools in northwest Indiana earned 100% graduation rates — Andrean High, a Diocese of Gary school in Merrillville and Kouts High, in the East Porter County School Corp.

IDOE’s count of the Class of 2022 by race and ethnicity shows graduating rate of American Indian is 84.28%, Asian is 92.06%, Multiracial is 82.71%, Pacific Islander is 83.1%, Whites is 88.75%.

Story Posted:01/06/2023