June 10, 2025

The GRAD Partnership’s Year Two Impact Results show that middle and high schools implementing student success systems continue to achieve substantial progress in reducing chronic absenteeism and course failure rates — two strong predictors of high school graduation and postsecondary success.

Among schools that began implementing student success systems in 2022–23 and continued using them in 2023–24:

• The average chronic absenteeism rate declined from 29% to 21% over two years, a 28% reduction
• The average course failure rate declined from 31% to 20% over two years, a 32% reduction

In ninth-grade classrooms, where early intervention is especially critical, results also showed meaningful improvement:

• The average ninth-grade chronic absenteeism rate declined from 31% to 26% over two years, a 14% reduction
• The average ninth-grade course failure rate declined from 32% to 22% over two years, a 31% reduction

The report shows the benefits of the GRAD Partnership’s collective expertise: A large majority of schools receiving technical assistance from the GRAD Partnership were able to successfully implement student success systems, with 82% achieving solid or strong implementation in their first year, followed by continued progress in year two. Implementation gains were especially pronounced in areas such as combining data with human insights (+22 percentage points) and creating access to holistic, actionable student data (+27 points). These results underscore the effectiveness of student success systems when paired with sustained, high-quality support — demonstrating the GRAD Partnership’s ability to help schools translate research-based practices into meaningful, measurable progress.