New data presented at the Long Beach Unified board meeting Wednesday Dec. 14, revealed that students are not meeting UC and CSU requirements mostly due to English courses. Due to differences in requirements, some students can graduate even if they do not meet A-G standards.
A-G requirements are 15 courses students must complete with a grade of C or higher to meet the minimum requirements to apply to CSUs and UCs. Between 2018 and 2021, 40% of LBUSD graduates did not meet the A-G requirements.
LBUSD’s graduation requirements differ in that they require at least a D to pass, require one more year of math and history and include a state requirement of two years of physical education.
“We have a lot more questions and we will continue to ask them in the research, [like] ‘Which English courses?’ ‘Which sites?’ We definitely want to do some work with students to figure out why they think this is happening.”
Chris Brown, assistant superintendent of research and school improvement
According to Chris Brown, assistant superintendent of research and school improvement, it is important to break down the data by looking specifically at students who graduated but did not meet the A-G requirements.
25% of students who graduated but did not meet A-G did so only in one area of study; 18% missed two areas and another 18% missed three areas.
“A lot of them are not missing wildly, they’re not missing in every area they take. They’re not getting D’s all the way throughout their careers,” Brown said. “It’s just one or two areas [that they’re missing].”
English was the biggest problem area for 63% of students who missed one or two areas.
English has a four-year requirement in both A-G and LBUSD graduation requirements, which means students must take an English course each year of high school. According to the data, most students are failing to meet the requirement during their senior year in English. About 46% of students who did not meet the A-G requirement did not get a C or greater in English 12.
The percentage is less among the other English classes as 17% missed English 9, 16% missed English 10 and 21% missed English 11.
According to Brown, this is not a result of students taking a course that doesn’t qualify for A-G their senior year since all LBUSD English courses align with A-G, so it’s not a scheduling issue.
“We have a lot more questions and we will continue to ask them in the research, [like] ‘Which English courses?’ ‘Which sites?’ We definitely want to do some work with students to figure out why they think this is happening,” Brown said.
One of the possible reasons, according to Brown, is that students who are planning to attend community college–which does not require them to meet A-G–and may struggle with English feel as if it is not necessary to get a C to be successful.
“I really do think we’ve done a really good job of supporting students who aren’t going directly to four-year universities and so, it’s okay to be a successful graduate who’s gonna go to LBCC and move on from there. We’ve messaged that very well,“ Brown said.
Board member Juan Benitez said that regardless of the requirement, having options is still important.
“I agree it’s okay to go to LBCC, but we should have the opportunity if students want to go straight into a four year institution,” Benitez said.
Brown also said that another potential barrier to meeting the English requirement is that it is the only area that requires four years. Other areas like science and history have a bit more flexibility to retake or make up a course since they require fewer years.
Brown said that these are just speculated reasons based on the data presented.
“I think this is one of those presentations that as you learn more you’ll inform the board more, and six months from now start to formulate potentially what some of those support systems could look like for our students,” board president Megan Kerr said.
