Chief Deputy Superintendent Mary Nicely, Lead for Information and Technology Branch, Announces First Ever Report on Student Stability Rates

SACRAMENTO—Chief Deputy Superintendent Mary Nicely announced today the release of the first ever “Stability Rate” (SR) reports created by the California Department of Education (CDE). These reports were developed in response to requests from educators, policy makers, and educational partners across the state, and identify the number and percent of students who receive a “full year” of learning in the same school.

“I commend the work of the Analysis, Measurement & Accountability Reporting Division at the CDE in creating this report, which is another valuable tool for us to identify and assist our most vulnerable students,” Nicely said. “While most students do not move schools, some students move schools once or twice, and very few students move a lot. State and national foster youth advocacy groups have been requesting for years that California publish this data, since it is a great conversation starter on the rights of our vulnerable students on still attending the same school even if they are forced to relocate.”

Stability and mobility are not the inverse of each other but knowing what proportion of the students that do not move is informative, particularly when comparing trends across counties, districts, schools, and different types of schools (traditional vs. alternative). This is critical because high mobility impacts districts, schools, staff, and, most importantly, students.

Key findings from the Stability Rate (SR) reports:

• Statewide, the percent of all students that were stable has been consistent over the last three years is high—between 91 and 92 percent.
• The statewide stability rate for 2019–20 varied across student groups with foster and homeless youth having the lowest stability rates of 65.8 and 79.5 percent, respectively. Students with disabilities had the highest stability rate of 91 percent which is one percent lower than the statewide rate for all students.
• In the 2019–20 academic year, grades nine through 12 had the lowest stability rate of 89 percent followed by kindergarten with a rate of 90 percent.
• Statewide, African American students had the lowest stability rate of 84.5 percent in 2019–20 and Asian and Filipino students had the highest stability rate of 94.5 percent and 95.7 percent, respectively.

The Stability Rate is defined as the percentage of all public school students enrolled during the academic year (July 1 to June 30) who completed a “full year” of learning in one school. Some states count students as being stable if they are enrolled in the same school during their official Fall and Spring Census enrollment counts. Other states determine which students are enrolled on the first and last days of school.

For California, the CDE arrived at a fixed number of calendar days that would include the requisite 180 instructional days for the academic year and allow for variances in school calendar, vacations, and weekends to capture approximately 90 percent of the approximate 270 calendar days associated with a “full year” of learning. Doing so allowed for the equal treatment of each student enrollment record regardless of when a school or track started or ended during the academic year. Based on this evaluation, and with input and feedback from other groups, 245 calendar days was determined to be the length of a stable enrollment within a school for California. Stability rate does not measure interruptions such as attendance or suspensions.

The measure was developed after an extensive review of various stability metrics calculated by other state educational agencies, an evaluation of the data the CDE collects, and in collaboration with internal and external educational partners. The CDE is also providing this data to fulfill a recommendation stemming from the State Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Improving Data Collection Workgroup that was held in 2019.

It is important to note that California’s SR measure is not an accountability measure. The information provided in the DataQuest SR report is intended to serve as a tool to help educators, parents, policymakers, researchers, and other educational partners across the state to better understand the complex needs of students and schools.

For more information about the Stability Rate Report Data, please visit the CDE’s Information about the Stability Rate Report web page. You can access the SR reports directly on CDE’s DataQuest site at: Stability Rates Report ; Stability Rates Report (with County data) ; and Stability Rate Downloadable Data Files.

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Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100