| For immediate release August 12, 2011 |
Contact:
Larry Slonaker, SCCOE Phone: (408) 453-6662 |
Analysis: County students graduate prepared for college
Note: This corrects the release sent Aug. 11, which put the percentage of Santa Clara County students completing A-G coursework at 50.5 percent. The correct figure is 48.9 percent.
SAN JOSE, CA – Nearly half of Santa Clara County high school students are graduating with the necessary coursework to attend college in the UC/CSU system, far outpacing their statewide peers, according to an analysis of 2009-10 graduation data completed by the Santa Clara County Office of Education's Assessment and Accountability Department.
However, the analysis also shows that Hispanic students continue to drop out at a far higher rate than do other subgroups.
The California Department of Education on Thursday released adjusted graduation and dropout rates for the 2009-2010 school year, using a new calculation method that analyzes four years of "cohort" data—a cohort being a single group of students that enters high school together in the ninth grade. Overall, the graduation rate for the county is 78.3 percent. This compares with a statewide figure of 74.4 percent.
Ready for UC/CSU
The analysis shows that 48.9 percent of county students graduated having completed the "A-G" coursework necessary to attend the state university system.The statewide figure is 34 percent.
The analysis comes with a couple of caveats, however.First, since this is the first year using the new calculation method, direct comparison between the numbers of this year and last year are not always valid.Second, even though over half of county students complete the eligibility requirement, the state's universities don't have room to enroll them all.
Achievement gap
As has been typical in the past, the results this year show that high-achieving students continue to be well-served in Santa Clara County schools. However, the results also reflect the persistent manifestations of the achievement gap, the disparity in academic performance between Hispanic/Latino and African-American students, vs. Asian and White/non-Hispanic students.
The dropout rates show that Hispanic/Latino students drop out at a rate of 31 percent.More strikingly, Hispanic/Latino students—who make up 37 percent of the overall cohort—make up 69 percent of the dropouts.
"We need to do a better job of serving all of our students," said Dr. Charles Weis, Santa Clara County Superintendent of Schools."When they drop out, we not only have failed them, we have failed our entire community."
Weis pointed to SJ2020, the effort to eliminate the achievement gap in San Jose by 2020, as a prime example of a spectrum of community groups and agencies collaborating to combat the gap."We can be proud of the schools we have in Santa Clara County," Weis said."We'll be prouder yet when our schools enable every student to succeed."
The entire analysis of the graduation and dropout rate data, complete with statewide comparisons, is available at www.sccoe.org.
Date last updated: August 12, 2011
