Between 2011 and 2020, Montana's English Learner graduation rate gained 8.9 percentage points, the largest increase among the 16 statewide subgroup series with rates at both endpoints. The next-largest gains were 6.4 points for Native American students and 6.3 points for students in special education.

The English Learner rate rose from 56.5% to 65.4%. Even after that improvement, 34.6% of English Learner students in the 2020 cohort did not graduate within four years.

The fastest climb from the lowest floor

In 2011, Montana's English Learner graduation rate was 56.5%, 25.6 points below the statewide rate. Just over half of English Learner students in that cohort earned a diploma within four years.

Over the next nine years, the rate climbed, though not in a straight line. It first crossed 60% in 2015, slipped back to 58.8% in 2016, and reached 65.4% by 2020. Across the same span the gap to the state average narrowed from 25.6 points to 20.4 points.

The pace of improvement was uneven. The rate fell 3.5 points in 2016, then posted its largest single-year gain in the 2011-2020 window, 4.7 points, in 2017. Three of the nine year-over-year moves were declines.

How English Learner improvement compares

The 2.5-point difference between the English Learner gain and the Native American gain separates the first two entries in the ranking. Economically disadvantaged students gained 5.7 points, Hispanic students gained 5.1, and the statewide rate gained 3.7.

Three subgroup series ended below their 2011 rates: multiracial students declined 2.8 points, Black students declined 2.7, and Pacific Islander students declined 0.9. The Pacific Islander rate also moved 13.1 points between 2014 and 2015, showing how sharply an individual subgroup series can change from one year to the next.

The gap is closing, but slowly

The gap between the English Learner graduation rate and the statewide rate narrowed from 25.6 points in 2011 to 20.4 points in 2020, a reduction of 5.2 points over nine years. The change was not steady: the gap widened to 30.8 points in 2012, the largest difference in the 2011-2020 window, before narrowing.

The downloadable statewide series includes the full 16-subgroup breakdown through 2020. The 2021 through 2023 files include rates for all students, Native American students, female students and male students; the 2024 file includes only the statewide rate. Because the downloadable files contain no English Learner rate after 2020, the comparison ends there.

What the state-level series cannot say

The downloadable graduation files carry no district rows or cohort counts. They cannot show whether the statewide improvement was concentrated in particular communities or how many students were in each English Learner cohort.

What 65% means

A 65.4% graduation rate means that 34.6% of English Learner students in the 2020 cohort did not receive a diploma within four years. The series does not identify those students' later outcomes. The English Learner rate was the lowest of the 16 subgroup rates in 2020; the next-lowest was 68.3% for Native American students.

The 8.9-point gain is the largest in the comparable statewide series. It also leaves a 20.4-point difference between English Learner students and the statewide rate at the end of the published comparison window.

Source: Four-year adjusted cohort graduation rates from the Montana Office of Public Instruction. The comparison uses the complete statewide subgroup series available for 2011 through 2020.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.