The LA Times reports that Los Angeles posted a record-high high school graduation rate last year:
For the high school class that graduated in 2022, the percentage of students who earned a diploma in four years in Los Angeles Unified — the nation’s second-largest school system — was 86%....There was about a 4.5 percentage point increase from 81.6%, a continuation of an ongoing trend of annual graduation-rate increases.
An increase of 4.5% in a single year hardly seems plausible. And yet, here's a look at the past decade:
As it happens, the Times apparently got things wrong. The graduation rate in 2021 was 83.8%, not 81.6%, so the increase was actually 2.2%. This is fairly normal for LA Unified, which has averaged a 2% annual increase since 2010.
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if there are two or three different measures of graduation rates. On the other hand, the LAUSD dashboard has the 2022 graduation rate right, so I suppose it has the 2021 rate correct as well.
In any case, this seems pretty remarkable. What on earth has LAUSD done to increase its graduation rate by 24 points in a mere 13 years?
"What on earth has LAUSD done to increase its graduation rate by 24 points in a mere 13 years?"
Maybe the are graduating folks who haven't learned anything.
That was my first thought as well
Reminds me of Prez from The Wire. “Juking the stats”
Would love to be proven wrong but if something seems too good to be true, my first thought is that it may not be true
Or maybe they removed some requirement(s) that were serving as an obstacle to graduation.
like being able to read.
I was thinking more like foreign language or higher math. Or passing a particular test.
Attendance and passing grades most likely. Both are white supremacy culture.
Everything here is gold. Love it.
I don't have first-hand knowledge of LAUSD. I do know that Connecticut schools mostly have a policy of never requiring any student to repeat any grade for any reason. By the time they get to high school, ready or not, they will graduate if they attend most school days.
Has the composition of the student body changed significantly over the years? Apparently LA hasn't grown much compared to the rest of the state, but the proportion of Asians has increased. https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/population-and-demographics/our-changing-population/state/california/county/los-angeles-county
I hadn't realized that it is almost 80% Hispanic, and over 90% socioeconomically disadvantaged (class size, entire district, ca. 32K)
The only larger (4000+) groups showing much lower rates are English learners and those with disabilities. Homelessness hurts too, but those numbers are relatively small (ca. 2000).
Though the improved graduation rates are inversely correlated with childhood poverty rates:
https://www.kidsdata.org/topic/2084/cpm-poverty/trend#fmt=2592&loc=2,364&tf=81,134
Hmmmm....
Note: that over 5% of the students are homeless is a number that is way too high, however changes in that group would have to be rather large to affect the overall average.
Kudos to LAUSD! Especially considering the last couple of grad classes spent a year or more of h.s. in remote learning (which is now accepted to be a terrible tragedy for kids' educations).
I wonder if this story is getting the attention it deserves. If the trend line were going the other direction, I imagine every parent and student in the country would have heard about it ten times by now.
grad classes = graduating classes
Are NEAP (NAEP?) scores available for that district? If so, how have they changed over time?
Did they remove the requirement for passing algebra? That used to trip up a certain percentage.
Seems like it depends on who you consult.
https://www.laschoolreport.com/commentary-how-lausd-set-its-graduation-requirements/
Only 64% graduated in 2010?!