In December 2024, Aleysha Ortiz filed a lawsuit against the Hartford Board of Education. She had graduated from Hartford Public High School earlier that year. She said she could not read or write. The case drew coverage from CNN, The Washington Post, and Newsweek, and it prompted the Connecticut State Department of Education to open an inquiry into Hartford's grading practices.

The same year Ortiz graduated, Hartford's four-year cohort graduation rate hit 78.4%, its highest mark in at least a decade. In 2025, it ticked up again to 78.6%. The capital city's graduation rate has never been higher in the available data.

Those two facts exist simultaneously, and together they frame the central question about graduation rates in Connecticut's fourth-largest district: what does the number measure?

Five years of going nowhere

Between 2015 and 2019, Hartford^↗ET's graduation rate did not meaningfully move. It ranged from 68.8% to 71.5%, a span of less than three percentage points, and ended the period 0.8 points lower than it started. During those same five years, the statewide rate climbed steadily from 87.0% to 88.3%, and the gap between Hartford and the state widened to 17.6 points by 2019.

Hartford sat near the bottom of the state's districts. In 2019, only four districts had a lower graduation rate. In 2022, only one did.

Then something shifted. From 72.3% in 2022, Hartford climbed to 73.8% in 2023 and then to 78.4% in 2024, a 4.6-point single-year gain that was the largest in the dataset. In 2025, the rate held at 78.6%.

The improvement moved Hartford from dead last among major districts to a middle position in the bottom tier, ranking 123rd of 135 in 2025.

The grading policy question

Hartford's upward trajectory coincides with what critics call a structural floor beneath its grades. Under the district's "minimum 50" policy, teachers cannot assign a numerical score below 50, even if a student submits no work or does not attend class. The policy has been in place for roughly seven years, according to Inside Investigator, and has spread to other Connecticut districts including New Haven^↗ET, Waterbury^↗ET, and Middletown.

The Ortiz case brought national scrutiny. In a January 2025 letter to state legislators, Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker said the department was "seeking to better understand how Hartford implements the 'minimum 50' grading policy, the rationale for its adoption, and the safeguards in place to ensure students meet the requisite minimum competency over subject matter before earning a passing grade."

The correlation between the policy and Hartford's graduation gains does not establish causation. Minimum-50 policies exist in districts across the country, and proponents argue, based on a 2004 paper by Douglas Reeves, that traditional 0-100 scales disproportionately weight failure because the failing range (0-59) spans six times the width of any passing letter grade. But the timing creates a legitimate question: Hartford's graduation rate was flat for five years under the policy, then surged. Whether that reflects genuine academic progress, policy mechanics, or some combination requires data this analysis cannot provide.

What Waterbury's trajectory reveals

The sharpest contrast to Hartford is not the suburb next door. It is Waterbury^↗ET, another high-poverty urban district that started in a worse position and climbed further.

In 2015, Waterbury graduated 67.9% of its cohort, 3.6 points below Hartford. By 2025, Waterbury graduated 85.7%, a gain of 17.8 percentage points over the decade, the largest improvement of any district in the state. Hartford gained 7.1 points over the same span.

Waterbury's rise was not a sudden jump. The district climbed steadily from 67.9% in 2015 to 83.6% by 2022, gaining ground every measured year. It dipped slightly in 2023 and 2024, then surged to 85.7% in 2025. Waterbury invested in targeted support programs, flexible credit recovery options, and smaller learning environments. Superintendent Verna Ruffin credited educators who worked "tirelessly to identify root causes and provide effective resources," according to a state education department report. The district also participated in the state's Alliance District program and a federally funded GEAR UP CT program that followed cohorts from middle school through graduation.

Waterbury also uses a minimum-50 grading policy. The divergence between the two districts suggests that grading policy alone does not determine outcomes.

Among Connecticut's four largest cities, the trajectories since 2019 have scattered in every direction. Waterbury gained 9.0 points. Hartford gained 7.9. Bridgeport^↗ET was perfectly flat at 75.1%. And New Haven fell 6.4 points, from 78.9% to 72.5%, dropping below Hartford after spending years above it.

The adjacent-district gap

Drive seven miles west on I-84 from Hartford to West Hartford^↗ET, and the graduation rate jumps from 78.6% to 92.2%. The 13.6-point gap between the two districts has actually narrowed. In 2018, it was 24.4 points.

But the narrowing is not entirely a Hartford success story. West Hartford's rate has drifted downward from its 2022 peak of 95.1% to 92.2%, a decline of 2.9 points. Hartford's gains account for most of the narrowing. Hartford climbed 9.8 points from its 2018 low; West Hartford slipped 1.0 point from its 2018 level.

The gap remains one of the starkest geographic illustrations of educational inequality in Connecticut. Both districts sit in Hartford County. Both serve students in the same labor market. The difference is demographic composition and property wealth, and graduation rates follow those lines as cleanly as any other indicator.

RELATED: Hartford Lost One in Four Students, and Its #1 RankingET

Who is graduating in Hartford

Hartford's data offers one additional lens: the "high needs" subgroup, which in Connecticut includes students with disabilities, English learners, and students eligible for free or reduced-price meals. In a district where the vast majority of students qualify as high needs, this subgroup closely tracks the overall rate.

In 2025, Hartford's high-needs graduation rate was 78.7%, virtually identical to the all-students rate of 78.6%. Statewide, the high-needs four-year rate was 87.3%, 1.6 points below the overall 88.9%. Hartford's near-zero internal gap between high-needs and all students means either the district has achieved unusual equity within its walls, or the population is so uniformly high-needs that the distinction carries little analytical weight. Given that Hartford's enrollment is overwhelmingly low-income, the latter is more likely.

Where Hartford sits now

Hartford's 78.6% graduation rate places it 123rd of 135 districts, surrounded by other urban and small-city systems. Fifteen districts graduate fewer than 80% of their students. New Britain^↗ET is at 71.0%. New Haven is at 72.5%. Bridgeport is at 75.1%.

The state itself graduates 88.9%, roughly in line with the national average of about 87%. Hartford remains 10.3 points below the state mark, down from the 19.1-point chasm in 2018 but still a gap that means roughly one in five Hartford students who start high school does not finish within four years.

The June 2024 state board intervention into Hartford's fiscal operations adds another layer. The district is managing a budget crisis under state oversight while simultaneously posting its best graduation numbers. Whether the fiscal intervention is affecting academic programming, staffing, or support services that contributed to the recent gains remains an open question.

Hartford's graduation rate is no longer stuck. But the Ortiz lawsuit, the grading policy inquiry, and the gap with Waterbury all point to a harder question than whether the number went up: whether the students behind the number are prepared for what comes after.

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