The California Department of Education released the latest edition of the California School Dashboard on Nov. 13, touting a “continued increase in academic achievement and graduation rates” and a “reduction in chronic absenteeism.” While some growth was evident, a look at the underlying data reveals a more complicated picture of student performance — one that demands greater scrutiny of the status quo, increased investment in public schools, and a commitment to reducing achievement gaps by accelerating achievement, particularly for the state’s most vulnerable students.
“The 2025 California School Dashboard offers a familiar picture, minimal progress in some areas as wide, persistent gaps in academic achievement and other outcomes continue to separate California’s students by income, race and zip code,” said CSBA CEO & Executive Director Vernon M. Billy. “The state celebrates underwhelming results instead of offering up a state-focused strategy to provide additional support to local schools. While incremental gains are welcome, they cannot obscure the basic facts — our academic performance is not improving fast enough to meet the needs of California or those of its 5.8 million students.
“California needs a comprehensive, state-focused plan to accelerate overall student performance and close massive and persistent achievement gaps,” Billy continued. “Most students fail to meet grade-level standards on state assessments for English language arts and math, indicating a lack of proficiency in key subjects they will need to succeed in college, career or civic life.” (Read the full statement.)
CSBA is calling on state leaders to hold their agencies and policymaking bodies more accountable for the level and quality of support they provide local educational agencies in closing the achievement gap. This approach is not only about a system change, but it’s also about a more robust change in mindset. CSBA believes it’s time for the state to turn from a compliance approach toward a customer service approach to help — not direct — LEAs. The creation of a state-focused plan should establish clear benchmarks, goals, standards and regular evaluations of the measures the state itself will take to change its operations in order to help LEAs close the achievement gap.
Dashboard results
Academic achievement
ELA
Collectively, performance for all student groups increased by a total of 5.1 points in English language arts (ELA), remaining at the “low” performance level, 8.1 points below the grade-level standard for the Smarter Balanced summative assessment or California Alternate Assessment. Four out of the 14 student groups scored in the “low” tier: Long-term English learners (LTELs) (-104.5 points below the standard), students with disabilities (-89.4), foster youth (-79.8) and homeless youth (-68.9).
Math
The progress in math was equivalent to that in ELA, although overall performance remains dismal. Students as a whole scored 42.4 points below proficiency, a 5.2-point improvement from the 2024 results. LTELs (-158.9), foster youth (-121.9), students with disabilities (-120.7), students experiencing homelessness (-102.8) and African American students (-95.8) registered in the “low” status level.
Graduation rates
Graduation rates continued upward 1 point to 87.8 percent and, after years of more robust growth, appear to have stabilized around that level, representing a significant increase from the 71.6 percent graduation rate at the turn of the century. Pacific Islander students saw substantial gains (4.1 points) bringing them closer to the state average. Most groups contributed to the increase; however, graduation rates decreased for white students (-0.2), students of two or more races (-0.4) and English learners (-1.1). The graduation rate for Asian students remains very strong at 92.6 percent.
English learner progress
English learner (EL) progress was essentially flat from 2024, increasing only 0.7 percent. The percentage of EL students who progressed at least one English Learner Progress Indicator level on the summative English Language Proficiency Assessments for California increased 1.4 percent from 2024, while the percentage who maintained at levels 1, 2 and 3 also grew 1.1 percent.
School culture
Suspensions
Suspension rates plateaued with no student group increasing or decreasing more than 1.1 percent in either direction. Suspension rates for LTEL students remain high at 7 percent, along with those for Black students (7.7 percent) and foster youth (13 percent).
Absenteeism
Over the past few years, California demonstrated strong progress in the effort to make sure students come to school regularly. However, that progress (while still positive) slowed substantially in 2025. Chronic absenteeism fell 1.5 percent from 2024 as compared to a decline of 5.7 percent the year before. Every student group saw a modest decrease in chronic absenteeism except for foster youth who went up very slightly (0.1). Chronic absenteeism is still up from pre-pandemic levels of 9 and 10 percent.
Differentiated assistance
A total of 418 school districts and county offices of education are eligible for differentiated assistance (DA), a slight decrease from 436 LEAs that were eligible in 2023–24 and a significant decrease from a record 617 that were eligible in 2022 following the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2023–24, 164 LEAs have made significant improvements in student outcomes and are no longer eligible for entry into differentiated assistance. Meanwhile, 69 LEAs became eligible for DA. An additional 78 LEAs are eligible for Geographic Lead Agency differentiated assistance, which occurs when one or more student groups have met the DA criteria for three or more consecutive years. Students with disabilities, LTELs and homeless students were the student groups that most frequently met the Local Control Funding Formula priority area criteria for determining DA eligibility.
The California School Dashboard results continue a trend of modest, uninspiring growth for the state’s students that has been tolerated for far too long. CSBA’s call for the state to create a comprehensive plan to support LEAs in closing achievement gaps is the kind of dramatic measure needed to jumpstart gains in the major metrics of student performance.
More information and communication resources for the California School Dashboard are available here.
