Cedar Rapids - EdTribune IA - Iowa Education Data

The Special Ed Gap Is 18 Points -- Iowa's Most Persistent Equity Divide

Fri, 22 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

This is part of the Iowa Graduation Rate series, examining trends in the Class of 2019-2024.

Special education students in Iowa graduated at 70% in 2024. The statewide average was 88%. The 18-point gap between the two is the widest equity divide in Iowa's graduation data after Native American students -- and unlike that gap, this one has barely moved.

Over six years of available data, the special education gap has ranged from a low of 17.8 points to a high of 19.6 points. There has been no year of meaningful progress and no year of meaningful regression. The gap simply persists.

A growing population, a frozen gap

The special education cohort has grown steadily, from 4,820 students in the Class of 2019 to 5,279 in the Class of 2024. That growth -- from 13.2% to 13.6% of the total cohort -- means more students are affected by a gap that shows no sign of closing.

Class of	SpEd Rate	All Students	Gap
2019	69.6%	88.3%	18.6pp
2020	71.4%	89.2%	17.8pp
2021	69.3%	87.8%	18.6pp
2022	68.0%	87.4%	19.3pp
2023	67.9%	87.5%	19.6pp
2024	70.3%	88.3%	18.0pp

The 2024 rate of 70.3% represents a modest bounce from the 2022-2023 trough, when special education graduation dipped below 68%. But the recovery only returned the rate to approximately where it was in 2019. Special education students, like the state as a whole, are back to pre-pandemic levels -- which were already inadequate.

Wider than every other gap

The special education gap exceeds every other measured equity divide in Iowa except for Native American students (20 points below the state average) and Pacific Islander students (19 points below). It is wider than the English learner gap (15 points), the Black student gap (12 points), the poverty gap (8 points), and the gender gap (2 points).

This ranking matters because it challenges assumptions about which groups face the steepest barriers. In public discourse about graduation gaps, race and poverty receive the most attention. The special education gap is larger than either and receives comparatively little scrutiny.

The district-level picture

The gap widens further in urban districts where special education cohorts are large enough to measure. In Des Moines, special education students graduated at 43% -- 28 points below the district average and 45 points below the state average. That rate comes from a cohort of 390 students, making it one of the most consequential special education outcomes in the state.

Burlington graduated special education students at 41%. Fort Dodge at 41%. Waterloo at 52%. Cedar Rapids at 52%.

Suburban districts fared better. Waukee graduated special education students at 81%. Southeast Polk at 83%. Western Dubuque at 93%. But these districts serve smaller special education cohorts, and the comparison makes clear how concentrated the challenge is in urban cores.

What the category contains

"Special education" is not a single population. The category includes students with learning disabilities, emotional behavioral disorders, autism spectrum conditions, intellectual disabilities, and physical impairments. A student with a mild learning disability and a student with a significant cognitive impairment are both counted in the same graduation rate, despite facing fundamentally different paths to a diploma.

Iowa's data does not disaggregate by disability type. The 70% rate is an aggregate that blends students who are on track to graduate with general-education coursework alongside students for whom a standard diploma may not be the most meaningful measure of educational success.

Some states report graduation by disability category or by educational placement (mainstream vs. self-contained). Iowa does not. Without that granularity, it is difficult to know whether the 70% rate reflects a broad failure across all disability types or a specific challenge concentrated among students with the most significant needs.

Nearly 1,600 students per year

At 70%, approximately 1,570 special education students in Iowa did not graduate on time in 2024. If the rate matched the state average, roughly 950 additional students would have earned diplomas.

With special education cohorts growing and the gap showing no movement, the absolute number of students affected increases each year. The gap is not getting worse in percentage terms, but it is getting worse in the number of lives it touches.

The Iowa Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.

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

Des Moines Has Lost 5 Points Since 2019 — The State Capital's Graduation Slide

Fri, 08 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

This is part of the Iowa Graduation Rate series, examining trends in the Class of 2019-2024.

Des Moines Independent, the largest school district in Iowa, graduated 71% of its students in 2024. Five years earlier, it was 76%.

The decline has been steady and unrelenting. Not a single year since 2019 has matched the pre-pandemic rate. While Iowa's statewide graduation rate recovered to 88% -- exactly where it was before COVID -- the state capital has moved in the opposite direction.

The numbers land differently when you drive 15 minutes west. West Des Moines graduated 90% of its students. Waukee graduated 97%. Johnston graduated 97%.

The gap between Des Moines and its suburbs is not a new phenomenon, but it has widened. The distance between Des Moines at 71% and Johnston at 97% is 26 percentage points -- meaning a student's odds of graduating on time shift dramatically depending on which side of a district boundary they live on.

A metro divided

The Des Moines metro tells a story about geography and resources. The five districts serving the metro area produced graduation rates spanning 26 points in 2024:

District	Graduation Rate	Cohort Size
Johnston	97.4%	575
Waukee	97.1%	908
Ankeny	94.7%	893
West Des Moines	89.6%	737
Des Moines	71.4%	2,369

Des Moines serves more students than the other four combined. Its cohort of 2,369 is the largest in the state, meaning the district's struggles affect more students than any other single entity in Iowa.

Inside the numbers

Des Moines' overall rate masks even wider gaps among subgroups. Special education students graduated at 43% -- 27 points below the district average and 45 points below the state average. English learners graduated at 57%. Economically disadvantaged students -- who make up 83% of the cohort -- graduated at 67%.

The racial gaps within Des Moines are substantial. White students graduated at 77%, below the state average but well above the district's Black students at 67% and Hispanic students at 67%.

Males graduated at 68% compared to 75% for females -- a 7-point gender gap that mirrors the statewide pattern but is more pronounced in Des Moines.

How Des Moines compares to other cities

Des Moines' 71% rate is the lowest among Iowa's major urban districts. Cedar Rapids, the second-largest city, graduated 79%. Davenport graduated 78%. Even Waterloo, which faces many of the same demographic challenges, graduated 74%.

Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa, graduated 91% -- higher than the state average and 20 points above Des Moines. Council Bluffs, Sioux City, and Cedar Rapids all outperform the capital.

The comparison with Iowa City is instructive because it illustrates how much context matters. Iowa City's student body is shaped by a university community with high educational expectations. Des Moines serves the broadest cross-section of the state's urban population, including large communities of refugees and recent immigrants.

A trajectory with no inflection point

What distinguishes Des Moines' pattern is the absence of recovery. Other Iowa cities dipped during the pandemic and bounced back. Cedar Rapids dropped from 77% to 76% in 2021 and climbed to 79% by 2024. Davenport recovered from its COVID low. Sioux City bounced back to 87%.

Des Moines dropped from 76% in 2019 to 72% in 2020 and has stayed between 71% and 72% ever since. Four consecutive years of essentially flat performance at a depressed level suggests a structural challenge, not a temporary setback.

With a cohort of 2,369 students, the gap between Des Moines' 71% and the state average of 88% represents roughly 400 students per year who start ninth grade in the state capital and do not graduate on time.

Des Moines Independent did not respond to a request for comment.

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