California School Dashboard

The Academic Indicators contains two measures: English language arts/ literacy and mathematics. These measures show how well students are meeting grade-level standards. They are based on student performance on the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments and the California Alternate Assessments, which are taken each spring by students in grades three through eight and grade eleven.

The Chronic Absenteeism measure shows how many students were absent for 10 percent or more of the instructional days they were enrolled to attend. For example, if a student was enrolled to attend 180 instructional days and is absent 18 or more of those days, the student would be considered chronically absent. Students who are chronically absent miss out on important classroom instruction. Capturing this information in the Dashboard allows parents and educators to see if chronic absenteeism is a problem at a school or across a district.

The College/Career measure shows how many students graduate from high school better prepared for college or a career. It uses many different college and career measures, such as completion of coursework and work experience to exam results. Details on college measures can be found in the Measures of College Readiness document on the CDE website and details on career measures can be found in the Measures of Career Readiness document on the CDE website.

Proficiency in the English language is a first step for students to do well in other subject areas such as reading, writing, mathematics, and science. The English Learner Progress measure looks at the progress that English learner students are making toward achieving English proficiency. Each spring, English learner students take the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC), which measures how well they know and understand English. Results from the ELPAC are used to calculate the English Learner Progress measure.

Regardless of whether students go on to college, a high school diploma is the minimum requirement for most entry-level jobs in today’s economy. It represents mastery of foundational skills in mathematics, reading, writing, and the completion of a course of study. The Graduation Rate measure shows the number of students who received a diploma by the end of grade twelve.

The new Science indicator measures what students know and can do using the California Next Generation Science Standards. It is based on student performance on the California Science Test and the California Alternate Assessment for Science in grades five and eight and high school. This indicator will not be used for accountability purposes on the 2024 Dashboard and will be displayed only for informational purposes.

The Suspension Rate measure shows the percentage of students who have an aggregate suspension of at least one full day. Students who are suspended from school miss out on important classroom instruction. Capturing this information in the Dashboard allows parents and educators to see if there is a suspension problem at a school or across a district and whether certain student groups are suspended more than others. Note: A student is counted as suspended in the suspension rate only once regardless of multiple suspensions or multiple days of suspension.