Data-Driven Education Journalism for the Ocean State
Education News & Data
Local education reporting from every corner of Rhode Island, grounded in Rhode Island Department of Education data.
Rhode Island's 5-year graduation rate rescues foster care (+8.6pp), homeless (+7.6pp), and special education (+6.0pp) students, but not LEP students, who actually do worse.
Six years into Rhode Island's takeover of Providence schools, enrollment has fallen 17.2% to a 16-year low ahead of a July 1, 2026 return to local control.
Pawtucket climbed from 58% to 83% in six years, making it a turnaround success story. Then the rate fell back to 71%, with a 19% dropout rate.
Students who are currently homeless in Rhode Island graduated at just 59.0% in 2024, a 25-point gap from the state average and no improvement since reporting began in 2019.
Woonsocket's 44% chronic absenteeism rate is the highest among Rhode Island's large districts, with more than half of middle schoolers chronically absent.
Woonsocket climbed from 63% to 74% over a decade, then collapsed back to 62% in three years. The dropout rate is double the state average.
Rhode Island's urban districts have a 32% chronic absenteeism rate, double the 15.6% suburban rate. COVID widened the gap to 25 points before it narrowed.
Providence posted a 79.4% graduation rate in 2024, its highest on record and a 5.8-point improvement since the state took over the district in 2019.
Despite nationally recognized attendance campaigns, only 13.3% of Rhode Island districts have recovered to pre-COVID chronic absenteeism levels.
Rhode Island's white-Black graduation gap was closing steadily until 2018, reaching a record-low 4.8 points. Six years later, it's back to 9 points.
Providence Public Schools cut chronic absenteeism from 57% to 36% in two years under state control — the only large RI district to recover to pre-COVID levels.
Providence's white students graduate at 75.2%, the lowest among the district's four largest racial groups, reversing the statewide pattern where white students lead at 88.5%.
Half of Pawtucket's high schoolers are chronically absent — the rate is still rising while the rest of Rhode Island improves. Tolman High hit 59%.
After 33 years of state control, Central Falls' graduation rate peaked at 81.2% in 2015 and has fallen to 58.7% — with a dropout rate of 25.2%.
Rhode Island's chronic absenteeism fell from 34.1% to 24.8%, but 33,061 students still miss 10%+ of school. Middle schools are recovering slowest.
