DataQuest Highlights

2023–24 End-of-Year Reports

In November 2024, the California Department of Education (CDE) released a multitude of 2023–24 reports through DataQuest as part of its annual end-of-year data release. These reports encompass information on graduation rates, chronic absenteeism rates, suspension rates, stability rates, and other data on California's students. The full list of released reports is available through the DataQuest Schedule web page.

A Focus on Three Reports

To support the high interest of particular data topics, for the 2023–24 end-of-year DataQuest reports, the CDE conducted an in-depth examination on the following three specific reports

• Graduation Rate Reports

  The graduation data collected from LEAs are utilized to produce reports detailing the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate (ACGR), the five-year cohort graduation rate, as well as the one-year graduate and dropout counts disaggregated by demographic information and graduation outcomes. The CDE Graduate and Dropout Data web page provides users with direct access to the latest reports.

  What's New in the Four-Year Graduation Rate Report?

  Beginning in 2023–24, LEAs were required to confirm whether graduating high school students completed all state graduation requirements for a standard high school diploma but were exempt from local graduation requirements. Therefore, beginning with the 2023–24 four-year ACGR, this information can be found in a new column labeled "Graduates Receiving a Local Requirements Exemption." Because 2023–24 was the first year that this information was collected for four-year graduates, the exemption information will be available for fifth-year graduates beginning in 2024–25.

  Summary and Key Takeaways

  The four-year ACGR, referred to hereafter as the four-year graduation rate, has been trending gradually upwards over the past eight years and the 2023–24 four-year graduation rate stands at 86.4 percent statewide. Several program participation groups have seen their graduation rates increase markedly, including Socioeconomically Disadvantaged and Migrant students. Some key takeaways include the following:

  • Four-year graduation rates are stable with slight upward trends: The 2023–24 statewide four-year graduation rate was 86.4 percent reflecting an increase of 0.2 percentage points compared to the previous year. This marks the continuation of a gradual upward trend in graduation rates.
    
    
  • UC/CSU requirements rates on the rise: Since 2017–18, graduates who meet the University of California (UC)/California State University (CSU) admission requirements is on the rise with the 2023–24 school year seeing a 51.9 percent completion rate, for a total of 227,463 students.
    
    
  • State Seal of Biliteracy rates also on the rise: Students meeting the requirements for the State Seal of Biliteracy have risen overall from 11.3 percent during the 2017–18 school year to 14.7 percent or 64,261 students in the 2023–24 school year, which represents the largest number of students ever earning this distinction. The State Seal of Biliteracy, marked by a gold seal on the diploma or transcript, recognizes high school graduates who have attained a high level of proficiency in speaking, reading, and writing one or more languages in addition to English.
    
    

• Chronic Absenteeism and Absenteeism by Reason Reports

  The absenteeism data collected from LEAs is compiled to produce the following two reports that are accessible through the CDE Absenteeism Data web page:
  

  • Chronic Absenteeism Report, which displays information for students who are chronically absent. Students are determined to be chronically absent if they were eligible at the selected level during the academic year and they were absent for 10 percent or more of the instructional days they were enrolled to attend. While a high percentage of performance is often a typical desired outcome, for chronic absenteeism, having a low percentage of students chronically absent is the desired goal.
    
    
  • Absenteeism by Reason Report, which provides the reason why students were absent based on four different types of absences: excused absence, unexcused absence, out-of-school suspension, and incomplete independent study. Because this report includes students who were absent at least once during the academic year, users can use filters to view the data for students who are chronically absent versus non-chronically absent.

  Summary and Key Takeaways

  Chronic Absenteeism
  The chronic absenteeism rates have been steadily decreasing since it spiked in 2021–22 during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023–24, the rate fell to 20.4 percent (a 4.5 percentage point drop from 2022–23 and a 9.6 percentage point drop from 2021–22). As data from other states are published, it is apparent that the chronic absenteeism trajectory over the past three academic years in California follows a nationwide trend of initial spike and subsequent decline. Some key takeaways include the following:

  • Chronic absenteeism rates are continuing to decrease: The statewide chronic absenteeism rate was 20.4 percent for the 2023–24 school year. This finding marks a continuation of decline from 24.9 percent in 2022–23.
    
    
  • Chronic absenteeism rates are dropping for California’s most vulnerable student populations: In comparison to 2022–23, migrant (-4.6 percent), English learners (-5.3 percent), socioeconomically disadvantaged (-5.2 percent), students with disabilities (-5.6 percent), homeless youth (-4.3 percent), and foster youth (-2.2 percent) groups all had decreases in chronic absenteeism in 2023–24.
  
  

  Absenteeism by Reason
  Similarly to past years (with the only exception being 2020–21), most absences in 2023–24 are excused absences (52.3 percent), followed by unexcused absences (41.4 percent), incomplete independent study absences (5.4 percent), and out-of-school suspension absences (0.9 percent).

  • Excused absences make up most absences by reason: Excused absences make up 52.3 percent of the absences by reason in 2023–24, a similar finding to 2022–23 (54.7 percent) and 2021–22 (51.3 percent).
    
    
  • The statewide average days absent is 13.1 days in 2023–24: This average reflects a decrease from the prior year which was 14.6 average days.
    
    

• Stability Rate Report

  The Stability Rate Report includes a stability rate that is defined as the percentage of all California public school students enrolled during the academic year (July 1 – June 30) who completed a "full year" of learning in one school. Stability and non-stability rates as well as stability and non-stability counts are displayed in the report for schools, LEAs, counties, and the state by demographic information and grade level. The CDE Stability Rate Data web page provides direct access to the latest reports.

  Summary and Key Takeaways

  Overall, stability rates statewide have remained consistent year over year – varying within a range of 2.5 percentage points since the 2017–18 academic year. This trend continues for the 2023–24 academic year with a 0.2 percent drop in statewide stability rates following the previous year. Stability rates in conjunction with other data points are used to inform whether a school is eligible for the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) Equity Multiplier funding.

  • Statewide stability rates remain stable: The 2023–24 statewide stability rate was 91.0 percent which represents a 0.2 percentage point drop in since the 2022–23 academic year.
    
    
  • Elementary and middle school grades are the most stable: Kindergarten through grade eight have the highest stability rates of all grade levels, ranging from 90.8 percent to 92.8 percent.

Looking Ahead

As we look forward to 2025, new DataQuest reports will be released, covering data such as certificated staff, teaching assignment monitoring outcomes, annual enrollment, college-going rate, and special education by program setting. As these new reports are published, the following resources will be updated to inform viewers:

• DataQuest Schedule web page, which provides an overview of upcoming DataQuest reports expected for release in the coming year, and
• DataQuest Update web page, which informs users about released reports, new reports, downloadable data files, enhancements, changes to DataQuest, and tips on how to use DataQuest.