Greg Abbott is right that Texas' high school graduation rate is 90%

Gov. Greg Abbott's re-election campaign lauded education in Texas, with a May 15 video touting Blue Ribbon public schools, U.S. News ranking four Texas high schools among the top 50 STEM high schools, and the Texas public high school graduation rate.

"Governor @GregAbbott_TX has lead education to a brighter future," Abbott's campaign Twitter account @TexansforAbbott's tweeted, "That's why Texas' public high school graduation rate is at 90% overall."

Does Texas have a 90% high school graduation rate? State data supports the Abbott campaign's statistic.

PolitiFact Texas reached out to Abbott's campaign but did not hear back. However, the video credited the Texas Education Agency for the graduation rate statistic.

Of the students who started ninth grade in 2016-17, scheduled to graduate in 2020, 90.3% graduated within four years, according to a 2019-20 report by the agency. This percentage is called the four-year longitudinal graduation rate, because it measures how much of a starting ninth grade class completes high school within four years.

The remaining 10% might have continued school, received a high school equivalency certificate, or dropped out. Abbott's statistic checks out.

Some demographic groups have better graduation rates than others. Economically disadvantaged students graduated 6 percentage points lower (87.5%) than those who were not (93.5%). Compared with state averages, there were lower graduation rates and higher dropout rates for students in special education programs and students identified as learning English as a second language.

Abbott and his predecessor Rick Perry have long rallied around their work on education and touted Texas' high school graduation rate.

In 2018, Abbott said Texas ranked among the nation's top five states for its high school graduation rate. PolitiFact Texas found that to be True. In 2015 and 2013, PolitiFact rated statements by Perry to be Mostly True that Texas' high school graduation rates were third-highest in the nation. In 2011, Texas tied with five states for that title of No. 3.

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Democratic National Committee

stated on January 20, 2010 in a press release

"Under (Rick Perry’s) watch as governor, over six million Texans have no health care coverage, including one million children, homeowners suffer from the highest insurance rates in the country, and college tuition has skyrocketed 136 percent."

Texas was ahead of the national average graduation rate at 86% in 2018-19, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. It was among eight states with a 90% or higher graduation rate.

In the mid-2000s, Texas took an aggressive approach to turning around high schools that were not graduating at least 60% of its senior class, said Jacob Kirksey, assistant professor of educational psychology, leadership and counseling at Texas Tech University. Many states including Texas saw gains around this time because of the No Child Left Behind Act. High schools later also adopted career- and college-readiness models. The state education system under Abbott continued this effort that began during Perry's leadership.

"Compared to other states, I think Texas is not afraid to make changes and to try things out, which I think is a really important and powerful perspective to have in policy," Kirksey said. "At the end of the day, Texas is improving on all metrics with respect to graduation rates and attrition rates."

Gov. Greg Abbott's campaign tweeted, "Texas' public high school graduation rate is at 90% overall," accompanying a video touting K-12 and higher education wins.

That matches data from the Texas Education Agency, so we rate this as True.