CA public school students are academically declining

CA Teachers Empowerment Network president Larry Sand takes to Front Page Magazine to dispel ideas that the State’s public school students performed significantly better this past year. While standardized test scores have plummeted across CA, grades/graduation rates have inflated — thanks to AB 104, which changes failing grades to “no credit” (thus obfuscating data records).

To wit, during the 2021-2022 school year, data showed that the state’s four-year high school graduation rate climbed to 87%, up from 83.6% in 2020–2021. However, in the same stretch, the state’s chronic absenteeism rate skyrocketed. (California defines chronic absenteeism as students missing 10% of the days they were enrolled for any reason.) The no-show rate leapt from 14.3% in 2020–2021 to 30% in 2021–2022.

Smell a big fat rat?

EdSource’s John Fensterwald explains, “The high school graduation rate in 2021-22 reached a record high statewide and rose significantly for most student groups, although the progress warrants an asterisk. Recognizing the hardships many students experienced during Covid and the challenges of teachers in grading fairly during remote learning, the Legislature passed Assembly Bill 104. It allowed parents to request that F’s and D’s for high school students be changed to pass or no-pass. It also gave last year’s juniors and seniors the option to graduate with the state’s minimum requirements, made up of 13 courses totaling about 130 credits.”

The situation in Los Angeles is even more egregious. About 46 percent of the city’s students were chronically absent last year—more than double compared to the previous year, according to district numbers. Nevertheless, their grades are rising.

Their standardized test scores tell a different story, however….

This article originally appeared in Front Page Magazine. Read the whole thing here.

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Image by George Pak