Healthy Development Measurement Toolkit

Indicator PI.2.g Proportion of students graduating from high school by school

Data Source

California Department of Education. Educational Demographics Unit. 2003-2008 Graduation Rates Based on NCES Definition - District Report. Available at: http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/

Table prepared by City and County of San Francisco, Department of Public Health, Environmental Health Section.

Explanation and Limitations

Schools listed are in the San Francisco Unified School District. This list does not include private schools, although public charter schools are included. Other schools not included in this sheet include Urban Pioneer Experiential Academy, which is based in San Bruno, CA and had its charter revoked by the SFUSD in 2003. June Jordan School for Equity started in Fall 2005 and no students have graduated yet from the school. It is noted that schools in San Francisco vary in different grade levels served. For this indicator, high schools are defined as schools that serve grades 8-12, 9-12 and just 9th grade.

Although San Francisco Unified School District has the same geographic boundaries as the City and County of San Francisco, the total numbers differ because county schools (i.e., in juvenile detention and other special needs) are not included in SFUSD but are a part of the city.

Many other factors affect school quality in addition to graduation rates. Additional measures of quality could include: availability of books, supplies and other resources; physical and social structures of the school; actual and perceived safety at the schools; proximity to green space; training and experience of teachers and staff; involvement of parents in children"s education; opportunities for extracurricular activities; whether the school is used as a multi-use facility in the afternoons, evenings and weekends; and, existence of afterschool programs. Assessment of school quality necessarily needs to be a composite measure, of which graduation rate is one piece.

On November 7, 2006, San Francisco voters passed Measure A, which is a $450 million city bond to improve 62 schools in San Francisco. The bond money will be used to support improvements, such as bathroom repairs, school gardens, and fire/life safety upgrades. During the same election, Californian voters approved a $10.4 billion state bond for education (Proposition 1D), the majority of which will be used to build new schools and repair or expand overcrowded and dilapidated school buildings. $500 million of the 1D Bond is dedicated to career and technical education. As of November 2006, it is unclear what proportion of the state bonds will be allocated to San Francisco. But between Measure A and Proposition 1D, there is increased funding available for the next several years to address infrastructure within schools and possibly other aspects of school quality. It is unknown whether physical improvements to schools will be associated with any improvements in academic performance.

Similar to many other urban areas, San Francisco public schools face the challenge of trying to create a high quality, integrated academic environment that compensates for existing racial, ethnic and economic segregation by neighborhood. The education-related indicators in Objective PI.2 seek to illustrate these tensions/tradeoffs by providing multiple different indicators affecting the accessibility and quality of educational facilities in San Francisco. One measure alone cannot capture the complexity of student achievement nor the various push and pull factors causing children and families to leave or move to San Francisco. Therefore educational achievement and performance must be considered both within the broader context of neighborhood, social and economic conditions which are addressed in other parts of the HDMT.

Valuing the historic and social importance of integration, San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has experimented with a number of different school assignment policies to promote diverse, high performing schools. Currently, SFUSD allows any student to apply to any school in the city. However, there are often situations where there are more requests for spaces at a particular school than seats available. Whenever requests are greater than the number of seats available, the SFUSD uses a Student Assignment System to guide student selection.

The Student Assignment System involves a formula that calculates the probability that in a given grade randomly chosen students will be different from each other based on five race neutral factors. The factors include extreme poverty (defined as living in public housing, being homeless or being a foster youth), socioeconomic status, home language, academic performance rank of sending school, and academic achievement status. As could be expected, not all students can be placed in their top choice school. According to the SF Unified School District, 63% of students in grades K-12 were assigned to their first choice school and 82% were assigned to a school of their choice in the 2008-2009 school year. For more information on the SFUSD Student Assignment System, visit: http://portal.sfusd.edu/template/default.cfm?page=policy.placement.process

Why is this a Community Health Indicator?

Higher educational achievement predicts positive health outcomes directly. Education is also linked to health via effects on income.^a

Dropping out of school is associated with delayed employment opportunities, poverty, and poor health. It is also associated, in adolescence, with substance abuse, delinquency, injury, and pregnancy.^b

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara estimate that reducing the number of San Francisco dropouts by half would generate $108 million in economic benefits and result in 315 fewer murders and aggravated assaults each year.^c