Torlakson Announces Record High School Grad Rates - Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education)

Torlakson Announces Record High School Grad Rates - Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education):

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Reports Record High School Graduation Rates and Seventh Consecutive Year Increase

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson reported today that California’s graduation rate increased for the seventh year in a row and is now at a record high for the class of 2016, with the biggest increases during that period taking place among English learners and African American and Latino students.

Among the cohort of students who started high school in 2012–13, 83.2 percent graduated with their class in 2016, up 0.9 percent from the year before. (See Table 1.) This increase means that 4,917 more students received their high school diploma last year than the year before.

The state’s graduation rate has increased 8.5 percentage points since the class of 2010 posted a 74.7 percent rate.   

The graduation rate of almost every student subgroup calculated by the California Department of Education (CDE) also rose in 2016. (See Table 2.) The rate of increase among English learners was 2.7 percentage points, African Americans went up 1.8 percentage points, and Latino students increased by 1.5 percentage points.

“This is great news for our students and families,” Torlakson said. “Graduation rates have gone up seven years in a row, reflecting renewed optimism and increased investments in our schools that have helped reduce class sizes; bring back classes in music, theater, art, dance, and science; and expand career technical education programs that engage our students with hands-on, minds-on learning.

“The increasing rates show that the positive changes in California schools are taking us in the right direction. These changes, which I call the California Way, include teaching more rigorous and relevant academic standards, which provides more local control over spending and more resources to those with the greatest needs.”

Torlakson cautioned, however, that much work remains. “We still have a long way to go and need help from everyone—teachers, parents, administrators, and community members—to keep our momentum alive so we can keep improving.”

A critical job, he said, is to keep working to narrow the achievement gap between Asian and white students and Latino and African American students.

The latest statistics show the gap has narrowed. For African American students, the graduation rate reached a record high of 72.6 percent, up 1.8 percentage points from the year before and up 12.1 percentage points from 2010. For Hispanic or Latino students, the graduation rate climbed to a record high of 80 percent, up 1.5 percentage points from the year before and up 11.9 percentage points from 2010.

English learners saw a second consecutive year of big increases with the graduation rate reaching 72.1 percent, up 2.7 percent from the previous year and up 15.7 percentage points from the class of 2010. (See Table 3.)

Along with the record rise in the graduation rate, fewer students dropped out of school. The dropout rate declined from 10.7 percent in 2015 to 9.8 percent in 2016, down 0.9 of a percentage point.

The state dropout rate does not have a precise correlation with the graduation rate because some students are still pursuing a high school degree or its equivalent after four years. These students have neither graduated nor dropped out. Last year, 6.1 percent of students in the cohort were in that category, a decline of 0.2 percent from the year before.

Graduation and dropout rates for counties, districts, and schools across California were calculated based on four-year cohort information using the state's California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS). Cohort means the same group of students entered ninth grade for the first time and were followed for four years.

This is the seventh time this cohort information was calculated, meaning data may only be compared accurately over the seven-year period from 2009–10 to 2015–16. Prior to 2009–10, graduation and dropout rates used different calculation systems.

To view and download state, county, district, and school graduation and dropout rates, visit the California Department of Education's DataQuest. Downloadable data sheets are available on the California Department of Education Cohort Outcome Data Web page. Caution is urged when comparing graduation or dropout rates across individual schools and districts. For example, some county office schools, alternative schools, or dropout recovery high schools serve only those students who are already at the greatest risk of dropping out, compared with the broader population at traditional high schools.

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Attachments

Table 1: Difference Between Class of 2015 and Class of 2016 Cohort Graduation and Dropout Rates

Year	Cohort Students	Cohort Graduates	Cohort Graduation Rate	Cohort Dropouts	Cohort Dropouts Rate	Cohort Special Ed Completers	Cohort Special Ed Completers Rate	Cohort Still Enrolled	Cohort Still Enrolled Rate
2014-15	488,612	401,957	82.3	52,249	10.7	3,192	0.7	30,775	6.3
2015-16	489,036	406,874	83.2	48,118	9.8	3,442	0.7	29,991	6.1
Difference	424	4,917	0.9	-4,131	-0.9	250	0.0	-784	-0.2

Table 2: Cohort Increase or Decrease from the Class of 2015 to Class of 2016 by Subgroup and Program

Ethnic/Racial Designation or Program	Cohort Graduation Rate 2015-16	Cohort Graduation Rate 2014-15	Graduation Rate Difference	Cohort Dropout Rate 2015-16	Cohort Dropout Rate 2014-15	Dropout Rate Difference
Hispanic or Latino of Any Race	80.0	78.5	1.5	11.6	12.6	-1.0
American Indian or Alaska Native, Not Hispanic	73.8	73.1	0.7	16.2	18.1	-1.9
Asian	93.4	92.6	0.8	3.5	4.5	-1.0
Pacific Islander, Not Hispanic	81.9	82.2	-0.3	10.7	11.5	-0.8
Filipino, Not Hispanic	93.6	93.0	0.6	3.1	3.5	-0.4
African American, Not Hispanic	72.6	70.8	1.8	17.1	18.8	-1.7
White, Not Hispanic	88.1	88.0	0.1	6.9	7.4	-0.5
Two or More Races, Not Hispanic	84.9	86.0	-1.1	8.0	8.5	-0.5
Not Reported	57.7	57.9	-0.2	35.5	37.5	-2.0
English Learners	72.1	69.4	2.7	15.8	17.6	-1.8
Foster Youth	50.8	49.7	1.1	30.7	29.8	0.9
Migrant Education	81.6	80.7	0.9	10.4	11.2	-0.8
Special Education	65.5	64.5	1.0	13.8	14.9	-1.1
Socioeconomically Disadvantaged	79.3	77.7	1.6	11.9	13.1	-1.2
All Students	83.2	82.3	0.9	9.8	10.7	-0.9

Table 3: Cohort Graduation Increase from the Class of 2010 to Class of 2016 by Subgroup and Program

Ethnic/Racial Designation or Program	Cohort Graduation Rate 2015-16	Cohort Graduation Rate 2009-10	Graduation Rate Difference
English Learners	72.1	56.4	15.7
Hispanic or Latino of Any Race	80.0	68.1	11.9
African American, Not Hispanic	72.6	60.5	12.1

# # # #

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

Torlakson Announces Record High School Grad Rates - Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education):

Cohort Outcome Data

California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) cohort outcome data reported by race/ethnicity, program participation, and gender.



 Files include state, county, district, and school level data. Please refer to the file structure for details on what data are contained in the file.

Year of Data	File	File Structure
2015-16	cohort16 (TXT; 8MB; Posted 11-Apr-2017)	File Structure: Cohort Outcome Data 2010–16
2014–15	cohort15 (TXT; 8MB; Posted 17-May-2016)	File Structure: Cohort Outcome Data 2010–16
2013–14	cohort14 (TXT; 8MB; Posted 24-Apr-2015)	File Structure: Cohort Outcome Data 2010–16
2012–13	cohort13 (TXT; 8MB; Modified* 21-Jul-2014)	File Structure: Cohort Outcome Data 2010–16
2011–12	cohort12 (TXT; 8MB; Posted 19-Apr-2013)	File Structure: Cohort Outcome Data 2010–16
2010–11	cohort11 (TXT; 7MB; Modified* 12-Mar-2013)	File Structure: Cohort Outcome Data 2010–16
2009–10	cohort10 (TXT; 7MB; Modified* 13-Mar-2012)	File Structure: Cohort Outcome Data 2010–16

To use a file, click on the file name you wish to download and save the file to your computer. To view the file, open the file in a database or spreadsheet program. For further instructions, choose a link below or contact our office for assistance.

Special instructions for Excel and Access users

*For details on specific file modifications, refer to the File Modifications Web page.

Questions: Data Reporting Office | dro@cde.ca.gov | 916-327-0219 

Cohort Outcome Data - Student & School Data Files (Downloadable) (CA Dept of Education) - http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sd/sd/filescohort.asp

For Public Schools, It's Been '1984' For Quite A While | The Huffington Post

For Public Schools, It's Been '1984' For Quite A While | The Huffington Post:

For Public Schools, It’s Been ‘1984’ For Quite A While
Education was barely a blip on the screen in the presidential race—which is ironic, since the education divide determined the election.

In this post-truth age that’s done away with facts, George Orwell’s 1984 has soared to the top of the charts. But in the world of public education, it’s been 1984 for quite some time. And we didn’t even need the clumsy apparatus of a totalitarian dictatorship to bring it about. All we needed was some slick PR and smiley corporate faces and a media ready to spit back the buzzwords they’d been fed— failing public schools, no excuses, accountability, choice, access for every child, closing the achievement gap—repeating them so often that they passed for truth.

In Orwell’s dystopia, WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. The Ministry of Truth spawns lies and propaganda, the Ministry of Love supervises torture and brainwashing, and the Ministry of Peace promulgates war and atrocity. Turn the words on their heads, and you get a glimmer of the truth. And the Ministry of Education? There is no Ministry of Education. So now we have a Secretary of Education who’s a dedicated enemy of public education. Betsy DeVos has, for the past decade, used her fortune to privatize education in her home state, Michigan, where 80% of charters are for profit and beyond accountability, and student performance has plummeted.

But DeVos should come as no surprise: She is the culmination of the way things have long been headed. No Child Left Behind, signed into law in January 2002, brought to us by George W. Bush and the moneyed interests he represented, arrived in clouds of rhetoric about “access” and “civil rights.” It announced itself as “an act to close the achievement gap with accountability, choice, flexibility, so that no child is left behind.” But in fact it was never about access or leveling the playing field or even about “reform”: it was about opening up public education as a market, siphoning off tax dollars to charters and for-profit vendors, shifting public funds from a system that had public oversight and control to private interests. Education was a rich, untapped market with billions of federal dollars there for the taking. Schools, panicked at having their survival based on standardized test scores, invested heavily in testing technology. Multinational testing corporations, publishing companies, ed-tech ventures rushed in with their wares: software for administering tests, test preps, pre-tests, post-tests, tests scoring, lesson plans, teaching modules, assessment devices; entire new industries sprang into being.

Diane Ravitch, assistant Secretary of Education under GWB, was initially a proponent of NCLB, but recoiled in horror when she saw what it was doing, routing public funds into private profits, and realized this had been its purpose all along. She has told this story in The Death and Life of the Great American School System and Reign of Error ― so have Noam Chomsky, Henry Giroux, and dozens of teacher bloggers exposed corporate reform. But their voices are not heard in mainstream media; most people I know are incredulous For Public Schools, It's Been '1984' For Quite A While | The Huffington Post:

How a Community Copes When a School Shuts its Doors

How a Community Copes When a School Shuts its Doors:

How a Community Copes When a School Shuts its Doors
Shuttered schools can devastate communities. For a small Iowa town, losing its high school felt like losing a member of the family.

After 34 years of teaching math and science at Farragut Community High School in Fremont County, Iowa, Harold Dinsmore officially retired in 1992. Nine years later, he “retired” again, after he was called back to finish out the 2001 school year while administrators found a permanent chemistry teacher. In 2015, he went back again to close out the school’s last semester. This time, there would be no going back to the town’s only high school.

Last summer the school—a fixture in the community, since its creation in the 1920s—was “involuntarily dissolved.”

“It tears me up. It shouldn’t have happened,” says Dinsmore. “I was fortunate to have all my children go to that high school, and I’m very proud of [it].”

Dinsmore says his colleagues were proud of the school, too, and their pride made them active in the school’s life. “We all worked together and all of our school programs were strong,” he says, noting that when there was a game, Farragut’s bleachers were usually filled to capacity. “The school gave everyone a great foundation to succeed in life,” he adds.

Hometown Pride

Farragut is a small farming town established in 1870, and named after Admiral David Farragut—the nation’s first vice admiral to the U.S. Navy. He is remembered for making the cry, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” (paraphrased) during the victorious 1864 Battle of Mobile.

Dinsmore’s daughter, Marcia Johnson, lives and works in Shenandoah—a neighboring school district—where she teaches third grade and serves as the local president for the Shenandoah Education Association.

We all worked together and all of our school programs were strong. The school gave everyone a great foundation to succeed in life” – Harold Dinsmore

Johnson attended Farragut in the 1980s, and her high school memories are fond. “I loved being in a small school. We were involved in everything,” she says, firing off a laundry list of activities from music to sports, and “all” of the school clubs. She knew everyone, too: classmates and their siblings, teachers and their children.

During Johnson’s era, the school was known for the girls’ basketball team, which traveled to state championship games every year. “That was our claim to fame,” she proudly says.

The classes that followed Johnson’s won state competitions in speech, volleyball, and softball. Trophies filled display cases. And graduates’ academic efforts led How a Community Copes When a School Shuts its Doors:

School Choice Spread in The Avocado – Cloaking Inequity

School Choice Spread in The Avocado – Cloaking Inequity:

School Choice Spread in The Avocado

Check out the new school choice spread in The Avocado! The Avocado is a monthly newsletter focused on “educating, uniting, and motivating through an open discussion of relevant political and social issues.” I was honored to be interviewed for Issue 3 (April 7, 2017) which takes on education and school choice.

In your opinion, what is the biggest issue the American public school system faces today? And how is this affecting the quality of education available to students on a ground-floor, day-to-day basis?
 
The worst kept secret in the United States is that we have created a system in which the children of the wealthy receive the most educational opportunities. This inequality is historical and is also readily apparent in every city on the other side of the tracks, highway, river etc. This means that the poor have lesser educational facilities and technology, nutritional opportunities, more police in their schools, less counselors, less experienced and more new teachers etc. The structural inequalities in our system are on purpose and it is the shame of our nation.

It seems that many DeVos supporters actually do understand that vouchers and “school choice” only benefit the upper class, but are simply willing to sacrifice the needs of others for a system that will benefit themselves and their kids. How do we target those people and help them to better understand the ways that a thriving public school system can have widespread benefits?
 
First, I believe it is important to introduce evidence into our national conversation about school choice to counter the common sloganeering that’s heard. Vouchers, because of their design, allow researchers to the opportunity conduct high-quality, rigorous studies. The latest research on vouchers is actually showing that they either have no appreciable impact on students and some studies are actually finding that they reduce student success. Second, worldwide examples of voucher experiments in Sweden and Chile have enhance social inequity and had dismal results for poor children. Finally, I think it should also be known that vouchers have a sordid racist history because they were used after Brown v. Board for purposes of “all deliberate slowness” in the South to ensure the continued segregation of students.
 
There are some people in the school choice conversation that can’t be reached with evidence or reason, but as evidenced by the recent Intelligence Squared debate in New York City, if you provide evidence to the public about school choice they readily understand the problems.
 
You run the education publication Cloaking Inequity—what specifically is your position on and mission in speaking out for public education?
 
To create more clarity and truth around equity and social justice issue in the public space around charters, Teach For America, vouchers and other important educational policy issues, I created the blog Cloaking Inequity. I named the blog Cloaking Inequity as homage to the concept of camouflage from Critical Race Theory (CRT). The core mission of the blog is to uncloak the inequities are often camouflaged and hidden in education and public policy.  Cloaking Inequity is scholarly, yet accessible and engaging for a variety of stakeholders in the educational policy community. It provides a public platform to release recent book chapters, peer-reviewed articles, and policy reports. Furthermore, instead of only publishing in the traditional journal format, I can provide rapid scholarship to the public via statistical analyses that are relevant for the discourse surrounding hot education reform topics. The blog is also a tool by which I invite colleagues across the nation to contribute critical perspectives in posts examining various timely educational policy issues. I am also able to provide voice to teachers and others who have important educational reform counter-narrative to share. Cloaking Inequity has now reached nearly a million readers from more than 190 countries and is typically ranked one of the top 50 education websites in the world by Teach100.
 
At one point, Trump hilariously proclaimed that nobody knew health care could be so complicated—in many ways, it seems like the same applies to education; it’s deceivingly complex. What issues might Trump and DeVos encounter in trying to “reform” the American school system?
 
To this point in his presidency, Trump has only made Americans uncomfortable with his rhetoric and actions— our daily lives haven’t changed much beyond constant text notifications about the most recent Trump gaffe. The exception to this reality is of course immigrants who have been targeted relentlessly in his first month in office. However, if Trump delivers on his campaign promise to spend $20 billion on school choice in the first 100 days of his presidency, he will likely create chaos in public districts nationwide due to the drain on their resources. The financial disruption would directly impact communities nationwide and would likely have considerable political ramifications if implemented at the scale he has promised.
 
The White House budget office has plans to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities. If this funding is pulled, what is at risk for public schools?
 
Attacks on the arts is a longstanding Republican tradition that can be tracked back to Reagan and beyond. In fact, in the article From Dewey to No Child Left Behind: The Evolution and Devolution of Public Arts Education, we discussed the Republican focus on testing and standards in Texas-inspired No Child Left Behind also had a negative impact on the arts. Countries around the world, including China, envy the creativity and independence of our students that is fomented by the arts. This is a case of politicians using the strategy “if it ain’t broke, fix it.”
 
Are there any states leading the way in education reform? If so, what are the ways in which they are doing so and are there any state leaders that are responsible for the progress?
 
There are many states that have incredible education systems. For example, the research shows that only four countries in the world perform better than Massachusetts in Math and Science. Only five countries in the world perform better than eight other states (Vermont, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Maine, Wisconsin, Montana, New York and New Jersey). In fact, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test – the so-called National Report Card — shows us that the kids of today are smarter than they ever been and the nation’s graduation rates are at an all-time high. We can also tentatively look to Miami Florida for an example of how investments in education positively impact students over the long run in various types of communities (rural, urban, suburban) and for students of different kinds (socio-economic status, immigrants and students of color).
 
Our public education system deserves credit for making this happen. We’ve made real progress. However, as discussed above, the problem in those states, and across the nation is the severe inequality perpetrated by policymakers on poor students and communities. What we don’t want to do is replicate the failed top-down, anti-democratic policies implemented in places like New Orleans, Detroit and Chicago.
 
Nine college campuses are self-declared sanctuary campuses, while over two dozen colleges and universities have protest activity in support of becoming a sanctuary school. What are the pros and cons of sanctuary campuses? 
 
Our American institutions of higher education have the sacred responsibility to foment knowledge and create safe learning spaces for our nation and world. We must not bow to authoritarian pressures that limit these responsibilities.
 
In many ways, Trump is waging war against the “other”—minorities, immigrants, Muslims, English learners, etc. How do you see this administration’s vision of the American public school system—especially considering DeVos’ lack of knowledge about the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Trump’s recent reversal of Obama’s transgender bathroom directive—to be a microcosm of the ableist, white, wealthy narrative being pushed by this new regime?
 
DeVos is the least qualified US Secretary of Education in the history of the United States. She demonstrated this lack of preparation for the job in “grizzly” detail during her Senate confirmation hearing. The challenge with the attacks on the “other” in society today is the covert approach is a departure from the overt racism, sexism, xenophobia of the past. Even the neo-Nazis that I have seen interviewed recently won’t admit that their views are racist, instead they say they are White Nationalists. It is much more difficult now that hate has gone underground and is instead delivered with eloquence— but is no less insidious.
 
We have entered an era of Politics of Provocation. Donald Trump and his supporters are always looking for equivocation and excuses for their actions. As a result, people who support the American dream for minorities, immigrants, Muslims, English learners, etc. must be disciplined in their approach to the constant reality show type provocation. In response, the strategy should not be different than the last civil rights movement. I recently visited The Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. There is an exhibit in the center where you can sit at a lunch counter and via headphones relive the experience of Jim Crow protestors receiving verbal and physical abuse from segregationists. I only lasted five seconds at the counter before it became too disturbing. However, just as Jim Crow protestors did during the civil rights movement, we must respond to the Politics of Provocation with reason, evidence and love. We must do this because it is the right and moral response to hate.

This interview appeared here first in The Avocado.

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School Choice Spread in The Avocado – Cloaking Inequity:

The Benefits of Doing Nothing - Teacher Habits

The Benefits of Doing Nothing - Teacher Habits:

The Benefits of Doing Nothing

Walk into any classroom and you are likely to see the teacher doing stuff. They’re lecturing, meeting with students, conferencing, planning, assessing, entering data, designing units, or circulating throughout the room. Few teachers give themselves permission to do nothing. But they should. Doing nothing is important.

When I say doing nothing, I of course mean doing nothing outwardly.  While it may appear that we our sitting at our desks and counting the ceiling tiles, our brains are busy at work.

The reality is that teachers don’t spend enough time thinking because we’re so busy doing.

Our Best Ideas

Our best ideas often come to us when we are idle. Before I started this blog, I was an aspiring novelist and in the course of telling a story, I’d often get stuck. I couldn’t figure out what should happen next. The worst thing I could do was think more about the problem. Usually, my best ideas came when I left the work alone and did something mindless. It’s hard to come up with great ideas on the spot or when we’re under pressure to do so.

The same thing happens with teaching. I have very few innovative ideas in February. But in the summer, when my mind is rested and I’m not stressed out from long days in the classroom, I regularly come up with new things to try for the upcoming school year. Teachers need to set aside time to just sit and think.

Sitting and thinking, instead of always doing, provides teachers with the mental space to be creative. I keep a notebook where I write down things to try in the classroom, and once a month I force myself to just sit and think of stuff. Ideas can come from books, blogs, colleagues, social media, or my favorite place, left field.

Reflection

Time to think allows teachers to actually reflect on what’s working and what isn’t. We’re all told how important it is to reflect on our lessons. It’s part of every teacher evaluation system I know of. But most The Benefits of Doing Nothing - Teacher Habits:

Poor whites just realized they need education equity as much as black folk - The Hechinger Report

Poor whites just realized they need education equity as much as black folk - The Hechinger Report:

Poor whites just realized they need education equity as much as black folk

But they must be able to say the word “equity” to get it

Poor and working-class whites have been getting more attention than resources lately — just like black folk have for generations.

The time couldn’t be better to push an equity agenda.

“My fellow chiefs and I are making equity a priority of our work,” said South Dakota Secretary of Education Melody Schopp in her address last month to a national convening of the CCSSO. The Council of Chief State School Officers is a membership organization comprised of the top education leaders of each state.

The think tank Aspen Institute and CCSSO published “Leading for Equity: Opportunities for State Education Chiefs,” a paper that outlines 10 commitments by state education officials to improve equity. And states have the ability to act. As school superintendents implement the complex new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, they have the freedom that ESSA provides to promote equity in their state.

Join the conversation later on Andre Perry’s radio show, “Free College,” hosted Tuesdays on WBOK1230 in New Orleans at 3pm Central/4pm Eastern 504.260.9265.

But not saying the word “equity” is a pretty good sign that you’re not for it. Consequently, state leaders can’t rely on U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos — who seemingly has a hard time uttering the word — to support their equity agenda.

On the same day as the CCSSO meeting, DeVos gave two speeches (one of them to CCSSO) and the word “equity” did not feature in her prepared remarks for either of them.

Republicans ought to have learned that Donald Trump won the presidency partially by repudiating the greed, elitism and callousness of the Republican establishment represented by the swamp he promised to drain. After losing the presidential election, Democrats gnashed their teeth and rended their garments trying to figure out ways to win back working-class white folk.

Well, all working-class lives matter. And the call for equity in schooling can be a rallying cry for people who vote differently but face a common problem — not getting an education that will help lift Poor whites just realized they need education equity as much as black folk - The Hechinger Report: