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Josh Michael, school board president, drew a direct connection between the lower graduation rate and “heightened political tensions including the presence of immigration enforcement activity that are being felt directly inside school communities.”
Maryland’s overall graduation rate for the class of 2025 dropped by just one percentage point from the previous year — a drop attributed to Hispanic and English-language learners leaving school because of immigration enforcement actions, officials said.
At a briefing with reporters before Tuesday’s State Board of Education meeting, Maryland State Superintendent Carey Wright said the 1% drop was “primarily due to lower graduation rates for Hispanic students and multilanguage learners.”
Josh Michael, school board president, drew a direct connection between the lower graduation rate and “heightened political tensions including the presence of immigration enforcement activity that are being felt directly inside school communities.”
Data from the Maryland State Department of Education showed the 2025 graduation rate at 86.4%, compared to 87.6% in 2024.
Michael said there was a 4.4% drop in graduation rates for Hispanic students and a 5.5% drop for what education officials categorize as multilanguage learners.
“I’ve never seen a drop or a gain that significant, year-over-year, in a relatively large subgroup,” he said.
Wright explained that overall, Hispanic students make up 24% of the total student population in Maryland.
Asked about the data from the previous school year, prior to increased ICE enforcement actions across the country and in Maryland, Michael said, “This is data from May and June of last year, right? All that is happening now will likely only further compound the trends that we’re starting to see from earlier in the year.”
At the same time the graduation rate dropped for Hispanic and multilanguage learners, the rate increased for Black, special education and lower-income students — groups that have historically trailed their peers.
Maryland Assistant State Superintendent Tim Guy told board members during the meeting after the briefing that the class of 2025 was notable in that “this was the first group of students that had all four years of uninterrupted (learning after) COVID,” and that the graduating class at 72,702 was larger than past years.
During the briefing, Wright said that last week, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement interim director for the Baltimore Field Office met with school superintendents to discuss concerns about ICE enforcement activities. Wright said the director was “very responsive.”
When one superintendent asked if officials could stop ICE agents from using areas around schools for staging enforcement efforts, the director said “she was not aware that there was staging and so she said she would absolutely take care of that,” Wright said.
WTOP has contacted the Baltimore Field Office to ask about the meeting but the call was not returned.
Data from Maryland’s largest school system
Montgomery County’s graduation rate for students in 2025 was 88.7%, above the statewide average, but lower than its 91.8% graduation rate of 2024.
“We’re proud of the fact that we actually gained some ground in some critical areas with our African American students and some of our FARM students, as well as students with disabilities,” Montgomery County Superintendent Thomas Taylor told WTOP.
FARMs refers to students who qualify for Free and Reduced Price Meals.
“We lost ground with our English language learners, and that made up the largest percentage loss for us,” Taylor added.
While state education officials attributed the statewide loss to the current political climate and immigration policies of the Trump administration, Taylor told WTOP, “I can’t correlate the two directly, and I don’t have any anecdotal evidence of that.”
He said it’s something county school officials will look into: “That is certainly a concern of ours.”
Taylor noted that Montgomery County has the largest percentage of English-language learners “as well as the largest (percentage) of newcomers in the state.”
“So when see changes in (the graduation) data, it’s tremendously concerning, and it’s a call for action,” he said.
In a statement following Tuesday’s state board of education meeting, MCPS officials explained the county is “implementing strategies designed to restore academic excellence and reinforce core foundations across the district,” led by the Board of Education’s Future Ready Strategic Plan.
Among the objectives in that plan is closing performance gaps between reporting categories, including “students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, Multilingual learners, Hispanic/Latino students and Black or African American students.”
Montgomery County’s school system has information on resources for families within the county’s immigrant community.
“We want our families to know that we stand with our students … during this very difficult time,” Taylor said.
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Kate Ryan
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