California Students Show Continued Progress in Academic Achievement and Graduation Rates, Decline in Chronic Absenteeism with Release of 2024 School Dashboard

Student outcomes continue to improve after significant investments to ensure healthy and safe learning environments, accelerate academic outcomes, and prepare students for postsecondary opportunities.

SACRAMENTO—The 2024 California School Dashboard (Dashboard) and accompanying DataQuest reports are now online, with data showing continued statewide improvements in student outcomes across key indicators of student success.

The Dashboard is a key component of the state’s school accountability system, which includes the latest data on graduation rates, suspension rates, test scores, English learner progress, the college/career indicator, chronic absenteeism, and local indicators.

The 2024 Dashboard and DataQuest results show that:

• All student groups show significant increases in consistently attending schools, with a 16.7 percent year-over-year decline in chronic absenteeism.
• There is continued statewide growth in student graduation rates, with the largest cohort of students graduating K–12 schools since 2017.
• Over 10,000 students graduated in their fifth year during 2023–24 as members of the class of 2023.
• Upon graduating, students are earning distinctions such as the State Seal of Biliteracy at higher rates than ever.
• College and career readiness has been maintained for all students and increased for specific student groups, narrowing equity gaps for Black/African American students, American Indian/Alaska Native students, and Long-Term English Learners.
• Suspension rates have declined for every student group, though there is a need for a continued focus on disparities in suspension for Black/African American students, foster youth, Long-Term English Learners, homeless youth, and students with disabilities.

The chronic absenteeism rate, which measures the number of students who missed 10 percent of the days they were enrolled for any reason, declined to 20.4 percent in 2023–24, a decline of 4.5 percent from last year and a 9.6 percent decline from an all-time high of 30 percent in 2021–22. Equity gaps in chronic absenteeism are becoming smaller, with improvements made in the most vulnerable student groups, including foster youth, homeless youth, students with disabilities, English learners, socioeconomically disadvantaged students, and migrant students.

This continued improvement in chronic absenteeism follows significant investments championed by Superintendent Thurmond and Governor Newsom in initiatives that support family engagement and student well-being, such as Community Schools, Expanded Learning, Universal Meals, and Mental Health Supports. These programs are a key focus of Superintendent Thurmond’s Transforming Schools Initiative.

The four-year cohort graduation rate for the class of 2024 is 86.4 percent, representing a slight increase from last year and a higher rate than pre-pandemic levels. Graduation rates are largely stable, trending upward for many student groups, especially migrant students and socioeconomically disadvantaged students.

The 2023–24 four-year adjusted cohort also included more graduates who meet the University of California/California State University admission requirements than prior to the pandemic, with 227,463 students (51.4 percent of graduates) eligible for admission at California’s public universities. This represents a continued increase from the prior year, when 50.4 percent of graduates were eligible for UC/CSU admission.

Students statewide earned 64,261 State Seals of Biliteracy during the 2023–24 academic year, a 2.3 percent increase from 2022–23 and 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.

“Across California, we’re seeing that when we provide for the most vulnerable in our communities all students reap the rewards. Our migrant students and socioeconomically disadvantaged students show marked improvements in consistent school attendance and graduation rates, reflecting the dedication of our educators and students alike,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. “It’s especially encouraging to see more students earning distinctions like the State Seal of Biliteracy, a skill that is increasingly vital to success in an increasingly globalized economy. Yet, we know there is still much work to be done to ensure every student has the support and resources needed to succeed. We must not waver in our commitment to education and our dedication to serve every child.”

“Today’s Dashboard results show California continuing to make important strides in post-pandemic recovery—we’re getting students back to school, getting more of them prepared for college and careers, and graduating them in greater numbers,” said California State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond. “We are also supporting stronger gains for Black students, Native American students, students in foster care, and others who have been furthest from opportunity in many years. There is still much work to do, and it will be critically important to continue the forward-thinking initiatives and investments made in recent years so that they will continue to pay dividends in the coming years.”

A total of 436 school districts and county offices of education are eligible for differentiated assistance. This continued statewide improvement comes after a record 617 districts and county offices of education were eligible for differentiated assistance in 2022, following the COVID-19 pandemic. When local educational agencies (LEAs) are no longer eligible for differentiated assistance, this means that the LEA has made significant progress in accelerating outcomes for a student group that was previously underserved. This decrease demonstrates that the state’s focus on providing targeted support and assistance to school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education helps them better meet the needs of their students.

Since 2022–23, 153 districts and county offices of education have made significant improvements in student outcomes and are no longer eligible for differentiated assistance. One hundred twenty-three school districts and county offices of education became newly eligible for differentiated assistance based on “needs-to-improve” outcomes for specific student groups. The majority of these districts and county offices of education are eligible for differentiated assistance based on needs-to-improve outcomes for Long-Term English Learners (LTELs), whose progress is now visible on the California School Dashboard for the first time.

For the Dashboard, LTEL students are defined as being enrolled in a United States school for seven years or more but have not yet reclassified as fluent in English. The California Department of Education has established an LTEL Community of Practice, grounded in the English Learner Roadmap and funded by Sobrato Philanthropies, that is studying student data and research to develop recommendations for how to better support LTEL students’ success. This Community of Practice will release a report in spring 2025 to address best practices to help districts better address these students’ needs.

Also new to the 2024 California School Dashboard: easy access to Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs), as required by Senate Bill 609 (Caballero). By adding a download of each LCAP to the Dashboard, all families can better access increased transparency about how school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education (referred to as local educational agencies, or LEAs) align their use of local, state, and federal dollars to accelerate student outcomes., Superintendent Thurmond has established the Cohort to Move the Needle on Test Scores, a consortium of LEAs across the state who are working to align their use of four sources of state funding in order to improve student outcomes in literacy and math: the Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists Grant, Educator Effectiveness Block Grant, Expanded Learning Opportunities Grant, and Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant. This first-of-its-kind cohort supports LEAs to maximize use of state-level investments in public education to further accelerate student progress across the state.

The improved data visible in the 2024 School Dashboard comes after California made significant investments in K–12 public education, with a focus on accelerating learning and prioritizing equity that includes $7.9 billion for the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant. The 2023 Budget Act provided $129.2 billion in total K–12 education funding—the highest per-pupil state funding ever for California students.

Beginning in the 2022–23 school year, the state allocated billions to expand access to Transitional Kindergarten for tens of thousands of four-year-old children to improve kindergarten readiness and long-term student outcomes. The 2022 and 2023 Budget Acts also provided a total of $500 million to fund the Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists Grant Program, which supports the development of school literacy programs and interventions to help pupils in need of targeted literacy support.

More information about the California School Dashboard is available on the California Department of Education Dashboard Toolkit web page.

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