West Florida senior Raleigh Nesbitt delivering her speech during the 2015 graduation ceremony.

If there is one thing in education that many people have been able to agree on over the years, it is that graduating from high school is essential to a better life and a brighter future.

“The graduation rate, in a lot of ways, is the ultimate measure of a school district,” says Malcolm Thomas, superintendent of Escambia County schools. “If you don’t have a high school diploma, all the doors that you will try to open are going to be shut.”

In Escambia County last year, one in three students left school without a high school diploma, facing closed doors and an uncertain future.

Today’s economy requires critical skills that go beyond the basics. To ensure economic strength and improve the quality of life in Pensacola, students must graduate high school ready for college, careers and life.

At 66.1 percent, the School District’s graduate rate climbed 10 percentage points from 2009, but it still remains far behind the national graduate rate of 81 percent, an all-time high for U.S. students.

In Santa Rosa, 82.8 percent of students finished high school in four years, more than six percentage points higher than the state’s average of 76 percent.

Since 2010, states, districts and schools have been using a new, common metric—the adjusted cohort graduation rate—to promote greater accountability and develop strategies that will help reduce dropout rates and increase graduation rates in schools nationwide.

For three consecutive years, the country’s graduation rate has continued to climb, which reflects continued progress among the nation’s high school students.

Across the U.S., more students are graduating from high school than ever before, and the number is expected to rise again this year.

The national graduation rate for the 2012-2013 year reached 81 percent, up a percentage point from the year before and 79 percent the year before that, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

The uptick in the graduation rate was attributed to a dramatic increase in the numbers of black and Latinos graduating from school.

If the trend continues, the national graduation rate could climb to 90 percent by 2020, according to a report from Civic Enterprises and Johns Hopkins University, which is part of a coalition spearheading the movement to achieve that goal.

But stagnation in certain states could keep the national average down.

While some states have made great strides, others have struggled to keep up.

The National Journal ranked and graded the states based on how their graduation rates changed between 2011 and 2013.

Nevada topped the list among the most improved states, rising from 62 percent in 2011 to 71 percent in 2013.

Alabama was ranked second, improving from 72 percent in 2011 to 80 percent in 2013.

New Mexico, Utah and Georgia respectively were the remaining three among the most improved states.

The least improved states were in order, Arizona, Wyoming, Illinois, New York and Wisconsin.

Even though Wisconsin’s graduation rate at 88 percent is well above the national average, the state was penalized for not doing enough to close the gap between black and white graduation rates.

The graduation rate measures the percentage of students who finish high school within four years of their first enrollment in the ninth grade.

Over the years, the graduation rate has become an important measure of success of a community’s education system and the quality of its workforce.

Studies consistently show that unemployment rates are significantly lower and lifetime earnings are substantially higher for high school graduates than for those who don’t finish.

Mirroring the nation’s improved numbers, Florida’s high school graduation rate increased to an 11-year high of 76 percent, nearly 17 percentage points higher since 2003-2004, according to data compiled by the Florida Department of Education.

While Escambia County’s graduation rate increased to 66 percent in 2014, more than 8 percentage points higher since 2010-2011, the rate still lags behind neighboring Santa Rosa County, the state and national averages.

Superintendent Thomas says he is pleased with progress Escambia schools have made in the past few years, but is far from satisfied with the below-average graduation rate.

“I’m not pleased with the number and I’m beating the bush with our staff, our teachers and our principals,” he says. “They know that we expect more.”

With higher expectations come more commitment and work.

The School District has revamped credit recovery for students who have failed. Now ninth-graders who fails a class in the first semester, can go to the next semester, attend night school or take a course online. Before, the student had to have reached 16 years of age.

Summer school has been expanded to two sessions and students who don’t pass their end-of-course exams only have to retake the portions they failed.

The School District also hired four graduation coaches who are assigned to students with low grade-point averages and are considered at risk of dropping out.

Among their duties will include keeping track of the ABC’s: attendance, behavior and course work.

“You want to prepare students to the point where they rise up and exit on time and go to the next thing in their lives,” Thomas says. “Whether that’s a university or a community college or to other postsecondary job training or right into the workforce, we want them to be able to do that on time.”