The U.S. Department of Education has found Alaska as the fourth lowest state for graduation rates in the country.
Recently released data showed only the District of Columbia (Washington D.C.), New Mexico, and Nevada had lower graduation rates than Alaska’s 71.1 percent for the 2013-14 school year.
Brian Laurent with Alaska’s education department says the state’s preliminary graduation rate for 2014-2015 is 75.6 percent.
He says that school year is when the state no longer required students to take a high school exit exam to get a diploma.
State lawmakers in 2014 approved replacing the exam with a requirement that students take a college or career readiness test.
Alaska’s rate has hovered around 70 percent since at least 2010-2011 according to federal data.
Nationally the graduation rate was 82.3 percent according to the recent report, the highest ever recorded.