Confused data distorts high school graduation rates in North Las Vegas

By Hillary Davis (contact)

Thursday, June 29, 2023 | 2 a.m.

The high school graduation rate in North Las Vegas isn’t as bleak as a recent report suggests.

A report the Clark County School District presented to the Clark County Commission on graduation showed North Las Vegas students with a graduation rate at 51.5% for the class of 2022, in stark contrast to the 92.1% in Henderson, 86.2% in Las Vegas and the overall districtwide rate of 81.3%. This suggests that nearly half of all North Las Vegas teens fail to graduate within four years.

But that isn’t true.

What the report didn’t detail is how the data is skewed because it included hundreds of prior dropout students who did not graduate from CCSD’s high school completion program for adult learners. The program has a base in North Las Vegas.

After questioning by the Sun over the low rate in North Las Vegas, a district spokesperson confirmed a 0% completion rate for the adult education program was included in the calculation — none of the 1,836 adult students who enrolled in the class of 2022 cohort completed the program.

Without that data point, 82.3% of North Las Vegas high school students graduated in four years, slightly above the district rate.

Although the 51.5% figure was highlighted in media reports and by CCSD’s largest teachers’ union in criticizing district leadership, the low number also didn’t reconcile with local school rates listed by the Nevada Department of Education.

“When I first saw it, I said, ‘Whoa, I don’t think that’s the case.’ Not that I’m bragging, but Rancho High School itself has a 94% graduation rate,” said Isaac Barron, a North Las Vegas City Councilman and social studies teacher at the North Las Vegas high school. “And others are not that far behind.”

CCSD has seven high schools in North Las Vegas: Canyon Springs, Cheyenne, Legacy, Mojave and Rancho, which are large, comprehensive high schools; College of Southern Nevada High School’s east campus, which is a small program for CCSD juniors and seniors to earn dual high school and college credits at the college’s Cheyenne Avenue campus; and Desert Rose schools.

Desert Rose is broken into Desert Rose High School for high school-aged students, including those under 18, who are behind on credits; and Desert Rose Adult High School for students over 18.

For the class of 2022, North Las Vegas’ comprehensive high schools had four-year graduation rates between 75.5% (Cheyenne) and 93.9% (Rancho). College of Southern Nevada High School had a 100% graduation rate for its 57-student class.

Desert Rose High School — not Desert Rose Adult High School — had a 26% graduation rate for its 123-student cohort. The comprehensive high schools each graduated classes of between about 450 and 700 students.

The district’s broader adult education department offers high school completion opportunities in-person and online. The department also offers classes in functional English as a second language. Adult high school equivalency candidates are “out of school” students, who have dropped out previously. One of its programs is Desert Rose Adult High School, at Commerce Street and Cheyenne Avenue.

The local research analytics company Data Insight Partners, which is a frequent district watchdog, pegged adult education as the reason for North Las Vegas’ poor showing on the report that Clark County commissioners saw.

“It blows up North Las Vegas’ student count by almost 50% and creates a completely misleading (and) irresponsible metric that stokes bigoted notions of race (and) poverty,” the firm posted in a Twitter thread questioning the report.

State law requires CCSD to provide quarterly reports to municipal governments highlighting student academic and behavioral topics. On June 20, the same day as the district presentation to the county commission, Data Insight Partners presented its own comprehensive study of North Las Vegas schools to the North Las Vegas City Council.

That presentation showed that pre-pandemic, CCSD as a whole made significant gains in high school graduation, climbing from 59% to 86% between 2011 and 2019. North Las Vegas schools did even better, improving their graduation rate from 55% to 92% during the same time frame.

Data Insight Partners, which is run by former CCSD employees, concluded that these gains were true, not artificially inflated through lower standards. The study cited accompanying improvements statewide on standardized reading and math exams that coincided with the city schools’ improvements.

North Las Vegas schools do have a distinct struggle with staffing. Last summer, CCSD said its deepest staffing gaps were in the county’s lower-income urban core. An accompanying heat map engulfed North Las Vegas.

In the same June 20 presentation before the North Las Vegas City Council, Data Insight Partners showed that North Las Vegas schools had 6.8 teacher vacancies per 1,000 students to start last year, compared with 2.2 vacancies per 1,000 students in more affluent suburban Henderson.

Barron acknowledged North Las Vegas schools encountered a range of societal problems that can affect students’ learning.

“We do have probably more than our fair share of homeless kids that go to Rancho High School. The mere fact that we can get anybody graduated is to be taken as a commendation,” he said. “If you look at all the homelessness, the level of poverty that’s a little bit higher, the socioeconomic status a little bit lower in North Las Vegas; if you look at other factors that are challenging American families, I think our schools should be commended in North Las Vegas for providing services.”

[email protected] / 702-990-8949 / @HillaryLVSun