The California School Dashboard numbers from the ‘2023-24 school year show gains in attendance and graduation rates; mixed results in reading and math.
Orange County students are reading a bit better, working more easily with numbers and, critically, attending school more regularly than they were a year ago, according to new data from the California Department of Education.
Click here to SUBSCRIBE to CA Political Review
Though the overall picture shows students locally and around the state remain somewhat behind where they were before 2020, when the pandemic interrupted education for millions, the new numbers hint at significant improvement in everything from verbal and math skills to graduation rates.
The data show local students improving in key areas that were affected by the pandemic. And several districts, including Capistrano Unified (the county’s biggest), Orange Unified, Tustin Unified, and even La Habra City Elementary (one of the smallest), exceeded pre-pandemic performance levels in English language arts or math or both.
Students also missed less school. Every district in the county improved or matched their most recent numbers for chronic absenteeism, which the state defines as the percentage of students who miss 10% or more school days in a given year. Chronic absenteeism soared during the pandemic and has yet to fully recover.
High schoolers around the county also were slightly more likely to graduate during the 2023-24 school year, according to the data. The uptick roughly matched a trend seen throughout California.
The latest California School Dashboard, released Thursday Nov. 21, tracks how California schools and districts are performing at the state and local levels. That data measure raw numbers for some levels of performance (absenteeism, graduation rates), while offering ratios that show if students are scoring above or below state standards in language arts and mathematics. The dashboard also works as part of the state’s schools accountability system, measuring graduation rates, suspension rates, test scores, English learner progress, college/career readiness, chronic absenteeism and other local indicators.
The online database was created in 2017 following a 2013 law that changed the way the state funds public schools and, overall, is intended to hold local districts more responsible for student performance.
Some parents suggested numbers tell only part of the story.
“I have one kid who did really well at the local high school for us. He’s science-oriented and felt totally comfortable. But I have another who went to the same school, and didn’t really feel like she performed that well because she’s stronger at things like English and history,” said Allison Tsai, who lives in Irvine.
“The school is great in my opinion,” she added. “But you have to be able to look beyond the numbers to see if it’s the right place for your kid.”
Here are some key takeaways for Orange County from the 2023-24 school data:
Increasing test scores
On average, Orange County schools scored roughly 31 points above the state standardized score for English language arts in the past school year. That’s well above the state average, which was 13.2 points below grade-level standards.
