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The Learning Curve: More Grad Rate Scrutiny Is Coming
Last week, Education Week reported the U.S. Department of Education is auditing graduation rates in California and Alabama, making sure the two states are accurately reporting how many students...
View ArticleSan Diego Explained: What Graduation Rates Really Mean
High school graduation rates are booming, locally and across the nation. But do those high rates mean what we think they do? Are more students graduating now than ever before? Last May, San Diego...
View ArticleStruggling Students Moved to Online Charters, Boosting District’s Record Grad...
Charter schools that allow students to recover credits through online courses are serving as an escape hatch for high school students in San Diego Unified who are least likely to graduate. Between 2014...
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San Diego Unified Wants to Shut Down — and Mimic — Online Charters
Hannah Sanders said suspensions were an every-week thing for her when she was at Kearny High School. As a freshman, Sanders’ mom left an abusive relationship with her dad, but that meant home was a...
View ArticleSan Diego Unified’s Jaw-Dropping Grad Rate Is Now Official. Here’s How it Got...
Data released Tuesday by the California Department of Education shows that 91 percent of San Diego Unified’s class of 2016 graduated, earning the district a record-high graduation rate and making good...
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The Schools More Likely to Be at Risk of Lead Exposure, Mapped
After water tested at one San Diego Unified campus revealed the presence of lead at twice the allowable levels, testing is under way at schools across the district. So far, the results have been...
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San Diego Unified’s Grad Rate Is Up — and It’s More Meaningful Than Ever
San Diego Unified’s graduation rate reached 91.2 percent this year, including significant improvements in the graduation rate of blacks and Latinos. In the 1980s, Jaime Escalante, a math teacher...
View ArticleVOSD Podcast: Why We Stood and Delivered Grad Rate Reporting
When students’ stellar test scores are called into question in the 1988 movie “Stand and Deliver,” actor Edward James Olmos, playing a real-life high school math teacher whose success story the movie...
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New San Diego Unified Data Offers Clearest View Yet of How Many Students Left...
Last year, more than a third of the students who transferred from a traditional San Diego Unified high school to a charter school were a year or more behind their classmates at the time they...
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At Some District High Schools, Grad Rates Are Climbing as They Lose More...
San Diego Unified’s class of 2016 set a record-high graduation rate of 91 percent. Graduation rates at individual high schools are climbing, too. Recently, 13 San Diego schools made a list of best high...
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What the Latest Grad Rate Report Really Says
The Learning Curve is a weekly column that answers questions about schools using plain language. Have a question about how your local schools work? Write me at maya@voiceofsandiego.org. San Diego...
View ArticleSo, Were We Wrong About San Diego Unified’s Grad Rate? (Hint: No.)
The communications team at San Diego Unified School District is quite excited about a new report from UC San Diego’s San Diego Education Research Alliance. The report is an update on the class of 2016,...
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Why Graduation Rates in San Diego — and Across California — Went Down
Mission Bay High School / Photo by Dustin Michelson Ever since a new countrywide method for tallying graduation rates went into effect in 2011, the U.S. government has been trumpeting rising graduation...
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Report Urges San Diego Unified to Track Students Who Leave Before Graduating
Image via Shutterstock At a June 2017 San Diego Unified school board meeting, then-board president Richard Barrera wanted to clear the air. “We’ve also had questions or criticisms regarding the...
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Good Schools for All: A Back-to-School Crash Course
Will Huntsberry is an education reporter for Voice of San Diego. / Photo by Adriana Heldiz Schools are back in session. Good Schools for All hosts Scott Lewis and Laura Kohn introduce Voice of San...
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The Learning Curve: San Diego Unified Ranks ‘High’ in Chronic Absenteeism
Central Elementary had one of the highest chronic absenteeism rates in San Diego Unified for the 2017-2018 school year. / Photo by Dustin Michelson The era of big data in education is evolving. It...
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VOSD Podcast: A ‘Crime’ at City Hall, and the Hunt for Leakers
Things got tense at City Hall this week.Earlier this week, when four San Diego City Council members asked Council President Myrtle Cole to docket a discussion about declaring the land under and around...
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District Admits Pushing Struggling Students Toward Charters
This post has been updated.Students who began as part of San Diego Unified’s class of 2016 but who left district high schools and transferred to a charter school had a combined grade point average of...
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Documents Reveal How San Diego Unified Urges Struggling Students to Find New...
Genesees Romero knew she was struggling at Patrick Henry High, even before the guidance counselor called her into the office. With nearly 2,400 students, the school was just too big, Romero said. She...
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