This week, the California Department of Education (CDE) published the 2025 California School Dashboard and corresponding data files on DataQuest, showing that students continue to see improved outcomes across all key indicators of student success.
The 2025 Dashboard shows that:
California’s graduation rate has continued to make steady, modest progress and is now at its highest since the launch of the California School Dashboard in 2017 – 87.5 percent, up 4.5 percentage points since 2017.
Graduation rates show accelerated progress for many specific student groups, representing a narrowing of gaps between student groups: a 4.1 percentage point increase for Pacific Islander students, a 3.5 percentage point increase for African American students, a 3.3 percentage point increase for Long-Term English Learners, a 2.8 percentage point increase for foster youth, and a 2.7 percent percentage point increase for students with disabilities.
College and career readiness has also increased by 3.1 percentage points statewide, reaching a level of 51.7 percent of graduates statewide who were prepared for college and career by their high school, 53.9 percent of graduates met California’s A-G course requirements, which is the uniform minimum set of courses required for admission to California public universities.
The rate of chronic absenteeism for TK-eighth grade students continues to improve. The 2025 statewide rate of 17.1 percent represents an improvement of more than 10 percentage points from an all-time high of 30 percent in 2022. The overall reduction in chronic absenteeism is one percentage point since 2024. The slowing of this statewide improvement indicates there is strategic work to be done to successfully reengage the students and families who remain chronically absent.
As reflected in the October release of assessment data, academic achievement has also made modest progress.
Notably, for the first time in the history of the Dashboard, all indicators are “yellow” or “green,” reflecting that all key student outcomes are showing improvement. Colors on the Dashboard are based on both status and progress since the previous year.
This continued improvement of all student outcomes follows significant investments in TK-12 education, including Community Schools, Expanded Learning, Universal Meals, and Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists.
“Seeing modest improvement on every Dashboard indicator should encourage us to deepen our investments in every child’s progress,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. “We can see that strategies like community schools and literacy coaches are making a positive impact for the whole child. I am proud of our work to narrow persistent achievement gaps in student outcomes like graduation rate, and we must not rest until all students’ outcomes represent their brilliance and potential.”
“The more we can invest time, energy, and resources into our kids, the better their future can be,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. “And whether that future consists of college or a good job, in California, we are going to continue our work to ensure students and educators have the resources they need to be successful. So, while these Dashboard results are important and show progress, we know there’s more to do to take achievement to the next level.”
This year’s Dashboard illustrates progress being made in many school districts across California. These significant increases in student achievement tell a story about how targeted state investments and key programs can create a blueprint for how further acceleration of academic progress could occur statewide.
“Dashboard results show California continuing to make important strides in post-pandemic recovery – we’re getting more students reengaged in the classroom, graduating students in greater numbers, and getting more of them prepared for college and careers,” said California State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond. “And, as we saw with the recent release of statewide assessment data, our students are making strong progress academically as well. We know there is still much work to do in the years ahead to continue this progress, but these results are an encouraging start.”
The continued improvement visible in the 2025 School Dashboard data comes as a result of California’s continued prioritization of investing in K–12 public education, with a focus on accelerating learning and prioritizing equity. The 2024 Budget Act provided $133.8 billion in total K-12 education funding – the highest per-pupil state funding ever for California students.
Additionally, the state has invested billions to expand access to Transitional Kindergarten for tens of thousands of four-year-old children to improve kindergarten readiness and long-term student outcomes. The most recent state budget allocated an additional $215 million to build on previous investments in the Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists Grant Program, which supports the development of school literacy programs and interventions to help pupils in need of targeted literacy support.
The California School Dashboard is a key component of the state’s school accountability system, which includes the latest data on graduation rates, suspension rates, test scores, English Learner progress, the college/career indicator, chronic absenteeism, and local indicators.
In conjunction with the California School Dashboard data release, the California Department of Education is also releasing several 2024-25 reports on DataQuest, the California Department of Education’s web-based data reporting system for publicly reporting information about California students, teachers, and schools. DataQuest reports in this release include data on four-year graduation rates, five-year graduation rates, suspension rates, expulsion rates, chronic absenteeism rates, absenteeism by reason, stability rates, and homeless student enrollment.
More information about the California School Dashboard is available on the California Department of Education Dashboard Resources web page.
