Graduation Rate
76 Georgia Districts Hit All-Time Highs
In 2025, 76 Georgia districts recorded their best-ever graduation rates while zero hit all-time lows, an unprecedented concentration of success across the state.
Georgia
Education News & Data
Local education reporting from every corner of Georgia, grounded in Georgia Department of Education data.
Georgia's Special Ed Graduation Rate Has More Than Doubled
Georgia's special ed graduation rate rose from 29.8% to 78.4% in 14 years, the largest gain of any subgroup. The gap to peers shrank from 42 to 10 points.
Crawford County Graduated 42% of Its Students. Now It Graduates 93%.
Crawford County posted a 50.7-point graduation rate gain since 2011, the second-largest in Georgia, one of 15 districts rising from below 60% to above 90%.
Georgia's Hispanic Cohort Doubled. The Rate Still Climbed 25 Points.
Georgia's Hispanic graduating class grew from 11,654 to 27,276 in 14 years while the graduation rate rose from 57.6% to 82.3%, producing 15,739 additional diplomas per year.
Georgia Cyber Academy Has Not Had a Good Year in Seven
Georgia's largest virtual charter has seen chronic absenteeism rise every year since 2019, reaching 17.2% even as the state's rate fell.
More Coverage
Equity
Nearly Three in Four Georgia Students Are Economically Disadvantaged. Their Absence Rate Is Double.
The gap between economically disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged chronic absence rates has widened 50% since the pandemic, with 316,000 students chronically absent.
Absence
Forsyth County Held Good Attendance While Georgia Slipped 13 Points
Forsyth County held good attendance near the top as Georgia's statewide rate slipped 13 points since 2019. The 'middle missing' is the fastest-growing group.
Equity
Georgia's Income Graduation Gap Fell to 3.5 Points
Georgia's income graduation gap fell from 15.3 to 3.5 points since 2011. But 88 districts now classify 100% of seniors as disadvantaged.
District Spotlight
Jenkins County's 45% Absence Rate Is a Virtual School Story
A statewide online school run by ACCEL Schools nearly doubled Jenkins County enrollment and pushed its chronic absenteeism from 25% to 45%.
District Spotlight
Atlanta Crosses 90% for the First Time
Atlanta Public Schools posted a 90.5% graduation rate in 2025, up from 52% in 2011. The district that was rocked by a cheating scandal now outpaces the state.
Achievement Gap
Georgia's Graduation Gap Fell from 15.7 to 2.8 Points
In 2011, white students graduated at 75.5% and Black students at 59.8%. By 2025, the gap had narrowed to 2.8 percentage points, one of the smallest in the nation.
District Spotlight
Gwinnett County Doubled Its Chronic Absence Rate
Georgia's largest district went from 9.4% to 18.4% chronically absent since the pandemic, adding 18,000 students to the missing rolls despite $19M in new mental health funding.
Graduation Rate
Georgia Went From 67.5% to 87.2% in 14 Years
Georgia's graduation rate climbed 19.8 points since 2011, matching the national average. The Class of 2025 produced 35,520 more graduates.
Equity
Georgia's Racial Absence Gap Has Nearly Tripled
Before COVID, Georgia's Black-white chronic absenteeism gap was 2.9 points. Six years later it has ballooned to 7.5 points, still widening.
Absence
Georgia's Chronic Absenteeism Rate Is the Lowest Since the Pandemic — One in Five Students Still at Risk
Only 12 of 194 Georgia districts have recovered to pre-COVID attendance levels. The state has 131,735 more chronically absent students than in 2019.
