California’s graduation rates reached a decade high last school year, while chronic absenteeism and suspensions continued to decline, according to the California School Dashboard released Thursday.
But progress remained uneven. Chronic absenteeism is still higher than before the pandemic, suspension rates have fallen only minimally and substantial disparities persist among student groups.
“At a time when California continues to focus on accelerating learning and closing opportunity gaps, these results provide important evidence that our sustained investments are making a difference,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement.
The California Department of Education’s dashboard tracks student success across several measures, including chronic absenteeism, suspensions, English learner progress, graduation rates and college and career readiness.
This is the first year the dashboard has been released alongside the state’s Smarter Balanced Assessment scores in English language arts, math and, now, science, giving educators and families a broader view of student outcomes.
“That’s a smart thing to do,” said Tyrone Howard, a professor of education at UCLA. “I think that way we kind of get as holistic of a picture as we can from multiple standpoints.”
The 2025-26 data comes amid a significant, ongoing decline in California student enrollment. Since the 2016-17 academic year, the state has lost 496,975 students — an 8% enrollment decrease.
Over the past decade, the state has also seen significant changes in the student population, with more students identifying as Asian, two or more races and not reported. There has also been an increase in students with disabilities and in homeless youths.
Chronic absenteeism remains above prepandemic levels
Chronic absenteeism continued to decline in California during the 2025-26 school year, falling 1.1% from the previous year to 18.3% among students in transitional kindergarten through 12th grade. The rate reached 30% during the pandemic-era spike in 2021-22. Students who are chronically absent have missed at least 18 instructional days, or 10% or more of the school year.
“The fact that we’re seeing drops, but not huge drops, is not too different from what you’re seeing across the country,” said Hedy Chang, CEO and president of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that works with school districts to reduce absenteeism.
The persistence of a high percentage of students chronically absent “points to the need for us to even deepen our work to reduce chronic absence to be even more strategic,” she added.
Downey Unified School District is among the districts that lowered its TK-8 chronic absenteeism rate from 19.2% last year to 18.4% in 2025-26. Its TK-12 rate also declined, from 20.4% to 19.9%.
Roger Brossmer, Downey Unified’s superintendent, attributes the progress to new schedules tailored to students’ needs. The district plans to “double down,” on its efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism, which remains higher than the state average, with a special focus on English learners.
Brossmer said Downey’s strong improvement in test scores – among the highest in the state – has reinforced his belief in the connection between student achievement and attendance.
“If they weren’t progressing, the number one thing they had in common was they weren’t coming to school,” Brossmer said. “And so we’ve shifted from a punitive model to more of a ‘we miss you, we need you here’ model.”
Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska native, African American and Hispanic or Latino students continued to experience chronic absenteeism at higher rates than the statewide average. The same was true for foster youths, homeless youths, students with disabilities, socioeconomically disadvantaged students and English learners.
Migrant students had a lower rate of chronic absenteeism than the state average, however.
Chang said that migrant student rates may be lower because students are leaving the state, or being detained, before they reach the 30-day attendance requirement to be counted toward chronic absenteeism data.
“It is possible that migrant youth are moving too far. You’d have to look at mobility issues at the same time,” Chang said.
Suspensions decrease minimally
California’s suspension rate measures the number of students who were suspended for at least one day. It fell by 0.1 percentage points between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, to 2.8%.
That is part of a several-year trend of falling suspension rates since 2022-23, when the rate was 3.6%.
“It’s encouraging that suspensions are going down, but the racial disparities are still pretty noticeable and pretty significant,” Howard said.
African American students had the highest suspension rates among racial and ethnic groups, followed by American Indian/Alaska Native and Pacific Islander students. Hispanic or Latino students were close to the statewide rate.
Foster youths had a much higher suspension rate of 13%, while homeless youths, students with disabilities, migrant youths, socioeconomically disadvantaged students and English learners also exceeded the statewide rate.
Howard said the state should provide more comprehensive data that includes both in-school and out-of-school suspensions.
“I’ve seen in other states (cases) where their out-of-school suspension rates have gone down, which is what they lead with,” Howard said. “But then, when you do a deeper dive looking at the in-school suspension rates, they have gone up.”
Graduation rates: the highest in a decade
California’s graduation rate reached 87.9% in 2025-26, the highest in a decade, according to the dashboard.
Graduation rates among Filipino, Asian and students identifying as two or more races exceeded the statewide average. Migrant students also graduated at a higher rate than the state average.
It’s likely that graduation rates are even higher in the state. The California average was skewed downward by two schools — Highlands Community Charter and California Innovative Career Academy.
Going deeper
Highlands Community Charter, an adult school, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month after an audit found it owed the state $180 million for funds it was not eligible to receive.
The school’s enrollment plummeted from 11,713 in 2024-25 to 487 in 2025-26. Its four-year graduation rate was 6.6%, according to Dataquest.
Statewide, Highlands lowered the graduation rate among Asian students by 2.8 percentage points and among white students by 4.7 percentage points.
The California Innovative Career Academy, one of the Highlands Community Charter schools, had a four-year graduation rate of 8.3%. Its enrollment fell from 1,729 students in 2024-25 to 800 in 2025-26.
College readiness also improved. Nearly 55% of graduates met the basic minimum requirements for the CSU and UC systems, a 0.9 percentage point increase from the previous year.
Meanwhile, 17.1% earned the State Seal of Biliteracy, a special designation on a student’s diploma showing a high rate of proficiency in a second language. And 33.8% received the Golden State Seal Merit Diploma, which shows mastery in at least six subject areas, marking a 0.8 and a 1.5 percentage point increase, respectively.
Troy Flint, spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, said graduation rates and college readiness are moving in the right direction, but more students need to meet standards in English language and math.
“A certain percentage of students are being pushed through without gaining the knowledge and skills that signify they’ve achieved a truly meaningful high school education and are prepared for their next step, whether that’s college or career,” Flint said.
This story was originally published by EdSource.
EdSource is an independent nonprofit organization that provides analysis on key education issues facing California and the nation. LAist republishes articles from EdSource with permission.
