LAUSD tests, graduation rates look better, state dashboard says – Daily News

Written by: Jarret Liotta, Contributing writer

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho cited historic developments tied to recent initiatives, praising newly released state data showing an increased graduation rate and other gains for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Carvalho and LAUSD Board of Education members held a press conference at Thomas Jefferson High School Friday morning to share district results from the Department of Education’s California School Dashboard data. LAUSD graduation rate increased from 83.6% in 2023 to 86.7% in 2024.

”This is a historically high graduation level,” Carvalho said. “The value of our investment in summer school actually advanced that narrative,” he said.

“Summer school, a month-long summer school attended by 100,000 students in Los Angeles,” he added, “allowed many high school students to recoup time and credits that allowed them to earn back their credits and graduate.”

He said that they expected some increase in this category, but this increase was one point more than expected. “This was one of the strategies that led to an additional one percent increase,” he said of summer school.

“When we talk about kids living at or below the poverty line, their graduation rates actually went above the district rate by 3.2%,” Carvalho said. “When we talk about English Language Learners, Latino students, homeless students, foster care kids, they also increased their graduation rates,” he said, and the rate of Latino students graduating increased by 8%.

“These are outstanding data sets that represent the hard work of our teachers, our support staff, the consistency across the district, the leadership of our principals, and the vision of this board,” he said.

Carvalho also touched on seven “key indicators” outlined in state data; these include chronic absenteeism, suspension rate, graduation rate, college/career readiness, math, English language arts, and English language learner progress.

The results of these seven indicators are displayed using a five-color meter, ranging from red for very low, to orange for low, yellow for medium, green for high, and finally blue for very high.

“For the first time in our district’s history, we have no categories, no indicators at the red or orange level,” Carvalho said, maintaining the district’s yellow ratings on chronic absenteeism, English Learner Progress, English Language Arts and other subjects. Maths.

“For the first time in our district’s history, we are a district that is in green and one in blue in two categories,” he said, referring to college/career readiness, which increased by 2.7 percent to 45.4 percent in 2024. The graduation rate and student suspension rate remained low, showing only 0.4% of students were suspended for a day or more.

Carvalho said this represents LAUSD’s “longstanding belief that suspending children from school is not an appropriate measure.”

State data also found that chronic absenteeism decreased by 7.7%, with 23.3% of students still chronically absent.

“We looked at districts like San Jose, San Francisco, Long Beach and San Diego… None of these districts could outperform our dashboard this year,” Carvalho said, noting that LAUSD has also seen improvements in English Language Arts and English Learner Progress.

“We can finally say that Los Angeles Unified is once again outperforming and outperforming other urban districts in the state,” he said.

While LAUSD officials welcome the latest state data, the past few years haven’t always been easy for students in the nation’s second-largest school district.

Learning losses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have not gone unnoticed.

Students in grades 3-8 and 11 saw overall declines in reading and math proficiency in 2022, according to the state’s Smarter Balanced assessments. That year, 41.7% of LAUSD students tested met or exceeded standards in English language arts; this rate was 44.1% three years ago, before the pandemic. Similarly, in 2022, 28.5% met or exceeded standards in math, compared to 33.5% pre-pandemic.

At the time, LAUSD students had lost about five years of progress, Carvalho said.

According to state statistics, 84.6% of the 381,116 students enrolled at LAUSD are considered socioeconomically disadvantaged. The student population consists of 21.2% English Learners and 0.7% Foster Youth.

“It’s great to hear the good news about LAUSD’s progress… I’m so proud of everyone,” Scott Schmerelson, District 3’s board vice president, said of the new data.

“Let me tell everyone, it is not just academics who are progressing. “We are doing great work to help students’ social and emotional needs,” he said.

District 6 board member Kelly Gonez praised the district staff. “What’s happening here is unique (and) doesn’t happen by chance,” he said.

“I am proud of what this moment represents for our school system,” he said, “and I am grateful to the thousands of employees in our schools who make this happen every day for the students and families they serve.”

District 4 board member Nick Melvoin described LAUSD as a leader in keeping students in school through restorative practices rather than removing them in large numbers.

“I won’t be satisfied until I see universal progress and universal blue and green dashboard indicators, (but) that progress is exciting,” he said. He noted that a number of new initiatives have helped make the district better, including a longer school year, expansion of early education, winter academy and interventions in math and ELA.

“We are seeing promising results,” Melvoin said.

Carvalho summarized: “This is a terrific day for Los Angles Unified. “We have finally proven that our region has punched above its weight and will soon pull its weight.”