California's high school graduation rate rose in 2022, with 87% of last spring's senior class earning diplomas on-time, state officials announced Thursday.
Statewide, the new graduation rate represents an increase of more than 3 percentage points over the prior year, and follows a string of small declines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thursday's announcement is a welcome reprieve from a string of bad news about the effects of the COVID-19 on student learning this year. Earlier this year, state officials released data from the first round of statewide testing since the pandemic's onset. As many feared, the results showed many students in Grades 3-8 and 11 were off-track academically.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District the graduation rate was even higher: 87.4%. That figure represents perhaps the first time that LAUSD's graduation rate has beat the statewide average, said Superintendent Alberto Carvalho — though he noted that rate included independent charter schools, which the district doesn't manage. Even setting aside charters, LAUSD's graduation rate topped 86% — and still rose significantly from the year before.
Here are the results from a handful of the county's largest districts.
(These figures reflect all schools in these districts, including charters.)
