Case Study: Tacoma Public Schools achieves predictive student-success analytics and a graduation-rate rise (55% → 82.6%) with Microsoft Azure

Predicting student dropout risks, increasing graduation rates with cloud analytics

Tacoma Public Schools, a Washington state district of 55 schools and 30,000 students, faced chronically low graduation rates—just 55% in 2010—and a reputation as a “dropout factory.” District leaders wanted to harness the wealth of student data they already had to predict disengagement earlier, change perceptions about at‑risk students, and enable timely interventions to improve outcomes.

Working with Microsoft Consulting Services and the Microsoft Data and Decision Sciences Group, Tacoma built a data warehouse and an Azure-based predictive pipeline using Azure Blob Storage, Data Factory, Azure Machine Learning, Azure SQL Database, and Power BI. A proof-of-concept using five years of data achieved nearly 90% accuracy, and combined with leadership and classroom initiatives helped graduation rates rise to 82.6% by 2016; the district is now moving toward near‑real‑time weekly risk reports and a model it can share with other districts.

Tacoma Public Schools

Shaun Taylor

CIO