Graduation rates among North Carolina’s growing number of Hispanic students rose nearly 21 percent in six years, but there is disagreement in identifying the reason for the trend.

According to data from the state Department of Public Instruction, graduation rates for Hispanics climbed from 52.3 percent in 2006 to 72.8 percent in 2012.

June Atkinson, state superintendent of public instruction, said state and state-influenced programs and initiatives have helped boost those numbers. But strong growth was seen in other subgroups as well, she said — 22.6 points among American Indian students; 14 points among African-American students; and 12 points among Asian students.

“I think it’s a combination of local schools’ initiatives as well as leadership from the Department of Public Instruction,” Atkinson said.

“We have provided professional development workshops across North Carolina about how to improve student achievement,” Atkinson said. The state led the way to implement transition programs featuring small-group assistance for ninth-grade students, and developed “graduation resiliency software” that allows school officials to track absenteeism and construct intervention measures tailored to individual situations.

“We consider ourselves a clearinghouse of great ideas,” Atkinson said.

The state now has in draft form a booklet culling ideas from school superintendents around the state that have elevated graduation rates through local measures, Atkinson said. It will be distributed to school districts to emulate best practices.

Among the successful measures are afterschool tutoring, popular JROTC programs, parent outreach efforts and workshops, business mentors working with students, and dual-language immersion programs.

Brienne Pasick, director of programs at the Cary-based North Carolina Society of Hispanic Professionals, oversees a pilot project called Graduate in several high schools to help Hispanic students to earn diplomas and to encourage them to go on to college.

She believes the Graduate program has been a positive force in the local schools where it operates in helping to increase graduation numbers, but said she couldn’t point to any state programs she believes are responsible for the higher numbers.

“As usual, we have no definite answer about why it’s happening,” said Terry Stoops, director of research and education studies at the John Locke Foundation.

“The state believes that the dropout prevention initiatives and the reforms of the curriculum are factors that are increasing graduation rates and student test scores even though there’s no evidence to support that claim,” Stoops said.

The General Assembly should be more interested in finding answers since it spends $12 billion annually in taxpayer money on PreK-12 schools, Stoops said.

“The state does very little to identify the factors that raise student performance” in any category, he said.

“I tend to think that it’s a combination between the teachers and the job market that is increasing the graduation rate,” Stoops said.

When the economy was good, students could drop out of school and be relatively assured of having a job in construction or some other type of manual labor, he said. As those jobs disappeared, students had greater incentive to complete their education and gain skills for the work force.

Atkinson said the state does have research to support its direction.

Dropout and graduation rate studies done by Johns Hopkins University have been accessed “in building a toolbox to be used by local school districts,” Atkinson said. The state uses 10-15 years of graduation and student achievement data from the Southern Regional Education Board in considering programs, and North Carolina has “at least 15 years of data to show that career technical education keeps students in schools.”

“Like all other groups, Hispanic students are seeing gains in test scores and graduation rates. Unfortunately, both Hispanic males and Hispanic females are far behind their white and Asian counterparts,” Stoops said.

“Although the improvements have been substantial, we still have about half of Hispanic students not proficient in reading and math, so we have a long way to go until they reach the level of white and Asian students,” Stoops said.

“It seems that one way to continue to raise graduation rates and test scores is to find ways to get more Hispanic students into charter schools and perhaps find those willing to open a charter school that would cater to that community,” Stoops said.

Dan Way (@danway_carolina) is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.