SALT LAKE CITY — Utah is leading the nation in closing the gap in high school graduation rates between white students and minority students, according to a national report released Tuesday.

Utah's graduation rate for Hispanic and Latino students was higher than that of any other state, going up 13 percent between 2011 and 2013, according to the report by Civics Enterprises. Utah closed the gap between white and Hispanic graduation rates by more than 7 percent during that time.

The 7 percent increase in Utah's overall graduation rate during the same time was the fourth-largest in the nation. Currently, Utah's graduation rate of 83 percent is almost 2 percentage points higher than the national average.

But the United States is well on its way to having a 90 percent graduation rate by the year 2020, the report states.

Ann White, director of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and special programs at the Utah State Office of Education, said Utah owes its thanks to the quality teachers who have helped realize the improvement.

"It's wonderful to me to look at this kind of study knowing" Utah ranks lowest in the nation in per-pupil funding, White said. "And yet we're getting these kinds of results. That speaks to the of dedication of our teachers and our administrators."

Utah also ranked fourth in the nation for closing the graduation gap for English language learners, and it had the fifth-largest gains for black students of 9 percent. The state earned a spot in the top 15 for closing its gaps for black students, as well as students with disabilities.

But the report also illustrates room for improvement. Utah is near the middle of the pack in closing the graduation gap for low-income students, though it still had a positive net change in 2013, according to the report.

Even in light of the high marks, teachers in the state are keenly aware that 1 in 5 of their students isn't graduating, according to White.

"I can tell you that there isn't an educator in this state that's satisfied with where we are, whether we're No. 1 or No. 4 or in the middle somewhere," she said. "We've got a lot of people working on improving graduation rates that are so critical for our students these days in being successful in their chosen careers after high school."

Such work is readily apparent at Granger High School in West Valley City. In 2010, the school began undergoing turnaround initiatives as part of a three-year grant it received. Effectively half of its students at the time were not graduating.

Assistant principal Dave Gatti said the school began its turnaround process by "building better students" through courses teaching study skills and boosting accountability measures when scores are low.

Since then, its graduation rate has gone up by about 25 percent.

While student programs helped, the success has taken a greater measure of work and confidence among teachers.

"At Granger, the key to the turnaround was teachers doing the work. It took a little bit of a paradigm shift to get teachers to say, 'All these kids can do this,'" Gatti said. "I know they believed it, but I think at some point we stopped behaving it."

The solution has also included helping parents understand how to help their children succeed in high school. This is challenging when most parents work two or three jobs, and helping students with homework becomes more daunting as the child gets older, Gatti said.

"A parent doesn't have to know how to do calculus. They don't have to know how to edit a high-level thesis in an English class," he said. "What they have to do is make sure those kids are in front of their teachers who know how to do those things, and they have the time set aside to complete the work before anything else happens."

Email: mjacobsen@deseretnews.com, Twitter: MorganEJacobsen