Creeeeeeepy school stats

The scariest thing that happened to me on Halloween was getting my daughter's "School Report Card" in the mail.  My daughter is a senior at Venice High School, from which my older daughter graduated in 2009 and my younger sister graduated in the 80s.  Venice High is one of 129 high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

So - what was so scary?

Right on the front page of this pamphlet was this statistic about Venice High:
Students Graduating in Four Years - 57% (393 out of 691 students).  And this is slightly better than the LAUSD average, which is - 54%! 

Cue the Psycho shower theme!

Here are some other spooky statistics from Venice High:

Students scoring at the proficient or advanced performance level in:
English Language Arts - 43% (LAUSD average - 37%)
Math - 24% (LAUSD average - 16%)

Seriously - 24%?  16%?????  And didn't I just read that most of the decent jobs in the 21st century are going to require math and science knowledge?  This doesn't bode well.

Students achieving a "C" or better in all A-G courses (these are 15 courses needed to be eligible for acceptance to a Cal State University or University of CA):
28% (LAUSD average - 25%)

Ironically, 42% of students say they "plan" to get a 4-year college degree.  This does jibe with the fact that 47% of students took the SAT and achieved a "minimum" score.  In fact, 61% of students who took the SAT got a minimum of 1400 - which ain't great but isn't rotten, either.  But only 38% of LAUSD students as a whole scored at least 1400.

And what really gets me is that it's been SO HARD to get LAUSD to see the Los Angeles Public Library as a truly valuable ally in helping students succeed.  We can't even get LAUSD administration to return emails, much less sit down and listen to how we can help.  It makes me want to hooowwwwllllll! 

But we'll keep trying.  'Cause that's the way we roll at the Library.

Can't scare us!