Pinkerton Academy - EdTribune NH - New Hampshire Education Data

The Charter Gap: NH Charter Schools Graduate 17 Fewer Per 100 Than Traditional Districts

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Every district in New Hampshire that graduates fewer than 70 percent of its students is a charter school.

There are seven of them in 2025, led by Making Community Connections Charter School at 13.3 percent and Synergy Academy at 33.3 percent. Together, they form the low end of a sector that averages a 72.5 percent graduation rate — 17 percentage points below the traditional district mean of 89.3 percent.

The gap is one of the largest structural features of New Hampshire's education landscape, and it has existed for as long as the state has tracked graduation rates by sector.

A Gap That Has Narrowed

The charter sector's graduation rates have improved dramatically. In 2015, the mean charter rate was 45.2 percent — less than half of students graduated on time. By 2025, that figure had risen to 72.5 percent, a 27-point improvement. The traditional sector, by contrast, started at 89.3 percent and ended at 89.3 percent — essentially unchanged over a decade.

The narrowing is real, but the remaining 17-point gap is still enormous. A student entering a New Hampshire charter school is, on average, about half as likely to fail to graduate on time as a student in a traditional district — but the absolute probability of not finishing is still roughly three times higher.

Who Charters Serve

The headline comparison obscures a fundamental difference in population. New Hampshire's charter schools are not, for the most part, competing with traditional districts for the same students. The sector includes:

Virtual Learning Academy Charter School (VLACS), the largest charter by cohort with 166 students in 2025. VLACS is an online school with a 69.9 percent graduation rate that serves students across the state, many of whom are pursuing flexible scheduling.

Making Community Connections Charter School, with 30 students and a 13.3 percent graduation rate. This is an alternative program serving students who have already disconnected from traditional schooling.

Academy for Science and Design Charter School, with 87 students and a 97.7 percent graduation rate — the only charter that consistently outperforms the traditional mean.

The variation within the charter sector is wider than the variation across the entire traditional sector. The difference between Academy for Science and Design (97.7 percent) and Making Community Connections (13.3 percent) is 84 points. No two traditional districts are separated by anything close to that span.

A Growing Sector

Despite the lower average graduation rate, the charter sector has grown steadily. Charter cohorts expanded from 289 students in 2015 to 485 in 2025 — a 68 percent increase. Over the same period, traditional district cohorts shrank from 13,397 to 11,495, a 14 percent decline. Academy cohorts (Pinkerton, Coe-Brown Northwood, and Prospect Mountain) held relatively stable, declining from 1,094 to 1,000.

The charter sector now accounts for 3.7 percent of the graduating cohort, up from 2.0 percent in 2015. If charter enrollment continues to grow while the sector's graduation rate remains lower than the traditional average, it will exert increasing downward pressure on the statewide rate. The math matters: moving 200 additional students from a 89 percent sector to a 73 percent sector reduces the state's overall rate even if no individual school changes.

The Academy Model

New Hampshire's three public academies — Pinkerton Academy^↗, Coe-Brown Northwood Academy, and Prospect Mountain — offer a third model worth noting. These publicly funded but independently governed institutions averaged a 92.9 percent graduation rate in 2025, outperforming both traditional districts and charters. Coe-Brown Northwood hit an all-time high of 98.8 percent.

Pinkerton Academy, with 742 graduates, is the single largest graduating institution in the state. Its 90.4 percent rate places it solidly above the traditional mean.

The academy model has maintained remarkably stable graduation rates — between 91 and 93 percent — through the entire 11-year dataset, barely dipping during COVID. Whether this reflects the academy governance structure, student selection patterns, or other factors, the consistency stands out in a year when volatility defined most of the state.

The New Hampshire Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the New Hampshire Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment.

Data Source

This analysis uses four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate data from the New Hampshire Department of Education, covering the graduating classes of 2015 through 2025. Sector classification (traditional, charter, academy) is based on the state's institutional designations.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.

Manchester's Quiet Turnaround: 4-Year Streak Lifts NH's Largest District

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Manchester^↗, the district New Hampshire has spent a generation worrying about, is doing something it has almost never done: getting better.

The state's largest city graduated 75.6 percent of its Class of 2025 — the fourth consecutive year of improvement and the culmination of a climb from the 67.8 percent trough posted by the Class of 2021. That 7.8 percentage-point gain over four years is the longest active improvement streak of any large district in the state.

The timing makes it more remarkable. Manchester improved in 2025 while the statewide rate crashed 1.6 points. It improved while Concord^↗, the capital, dropped to 73.0 percent. It improved while 20 districts hit all-time lows.

Where Manchester Started

To appreciate the 2025 number, you have to understand how deep the hole was. Manchester has been New Hampshire's lowest-performing large district for as long as the data exists. In 2015, its 75.8 percent graduation rate trailed the state average by more than 12 points. When COVID hit, the rate cratered: 70.2 percent for the Class of 2020, then 67.8 percent for the Class of 2021 — meaning one in three Manchester students did not graduate on time.

The four-year recovery has been steady rather than dramatic: 72.1 percent in 2022, 73.5 percent in 2023, 74.2 percent in 2024, and 75.6 percent in 2025. Each step was a small gain — 1 to 4 points — but the consistency matters. Manchester has not posted four consecutive increases at any other point in the dataset.

What Hasn't Changed

The progress is real, but the context tempers it. Manchester's 2025 rate of 75.6 percent is essentially the same as its 2015 rate of 75.8 percent. After a decade that included a collapse and a recovery, the district ended up back where it started.

And the dropout rate remains stubbornly high. Manchester posted an 11.4 percent dropout rate in 2025 — five times the state average and the highest among large districts by a wide margin. Over 11 years, Manchester has never recorded a dropout rate below 8.4 percent, and it has exceeded 10 percent in eight of those years. In raw numbers, 110 Manchester students dropped out of the Class of 2025, roughly one-third of all dropouts statewide from a single district.

When combined with the 75.6 percent graduation rate and the 11.4 percent dropout rate, about 13 percent of Manchester's cohort falls into the "unaccounted" category — still enrolled, transferred, or pursuing alternative credentials. That is higher than the state's 10.3 percent but lower than some might expect given the district's challenges.

Manchester Among Its Peers

The 2025 results reshuffled the hierarchy among New Hampshire's cities. Manchester, historically at the bottom, now outperforms Concord (73.0 percent). Nashua^↗, long viewed as Manchester's more successful neighbor, has closed from a 14-point advantage in 2015 to just 7 points.

Meanwhile, Dover^↗ surged to an all-time high of 91.5 percent, opening a 16-point gap over Manchester. Rochester^↗ held steady at 82.8 percent. The variation among cities of similar size — from Dover's 91.5 to Manchester's 75.6 — shows how much local context matters in a small state where all five cities share the same funding formula.

A 965-Student Challenge

Manchester's graduating cohort of 965 students is the largest in the state — bigger than Nashua (854), Pinkerton Academy^↗ (742), or Concord (371). In a state where many districts graduate fewer than 100 students, the scale of Manchester's challenge is different in kind.

With 965 students in the cohort, even a 1-point improvement means roughly 10 additional students crossing the stage. The four-year improvement of 7.8 points translates to approximately 75 more students graduating than the 2021 rate would have produced. Whether those additional graduates found their way through credit recovery, extended learning, or simply more effective supports, the district is reaching students it was losing just four years ago.

Manchester did not respond to a request for comment.

Data Source

This analysis uses four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate data from the New Hampshire Department of Education, covering the graduating classes of 2015 through 2025.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.