Data released by the U.S. Department of Education shows Alaska has one of the lowest graduation rates in the country.
Only the District of Columbia, New Mexico and Nevada had lower graduation rates during the 2013-14 school year than Alaska, whose graduation rate was 71.1 percent. Federal data shows Alaska’s rate has hovered around 70 percent since at least 2010-2011.
Nationally, the graduation rate was 82.3 percent.
Brian Laurent with Alaska’s education department says the state’s preliminary graduation rate for 2014-2015 is 75.6 percent. He says that’s when the state no longer required students to take a high school exit exam to get a diploma. State lawmakers in 2014 approved replacing the exam with a requirement that students take a college or career readiness test.
