In May of 2016, then-San Diego Unified Superintendent Cindy Marten touted a jaw-dropping statistic: 92 percent of the class of 2016 was on track to graduate. 

That graduation rate, one of the premier statistics by which schools are judged, was a stunning accomplishment for two reasons.  

One, it was nearly 10 points higher than the statewide average. Two, the district had pulled off the marquee accomplishment even as it adopted more rigorous graduation standards. More students were graduating even though district officials had made it more difficult to do so, according to the statistics. 

But as then-education reporter Mario Koran revealed in a series of stories over the following year, that sky-high graduation rate wasn’t what it seemed.  

Not only had thousands of students who started as ninth graders in a San Diego Unified school been excluded from the final tally, some low-performing students had been intentionally advised to leave district schools for charters. Once there, whether those students received a diploma had no bearing on the district’s graduation rate. 

The Charter School Shuffle 

In 2012, 8,745 students were considered part of San Diego Unified’s original class of 2016. Just four years later, though, the district only counted 5,918 students toward its graduation rate. 

So, where did they all go? Several places. 

Some transferred to a school in another district. Some moved out of the state or country. Hundreds also transferred to charter schools. None of those were included in the district’s final calculations, which, while fascinating context, isn’t actually controversial. This is how California requires districts to calculate their graduation rates.  

What Koran found, however, is that some of that movement was by design. Even given the high-stakes reality of school funding, wherein districts are funded in essence based on the number of students enrolled, San Diego Unified staff advised many students to leave their schools and head to a charter school instead.  

Those students tended to be low performing – often so low performing they were at risk of not graduating. Their average GPA was 1.75, too low to meet the district’s 2.0 graduation threshold.  

District officials argued for months about the reporting. They tweeted about it and created a (now deleted) webpage where they claimed it would be “both morally wrong and financially foolish” for schools to push out struggling students.  

Then nearly six months after Koran’s story about struggling students being pushed toward charters, Trustee Richard Barrera admitted that the district had done just that for years. In fact, officials were working to offer district staff more options beyond sending struggling students to credit-recovery charters, he said. Documents later obtained by Koran painted an even clearer picture of how district staff counseled students to switch to those charters. 

While district officials still maintained this practice wasn’t in place with the primary goal of increasing graduation rates, it certainly helped. 

The Online Courses 

During his investigation, Koran also revealed another fascinating wrinkle in the district’s graduation rate coup – officials often relied on online classes to help students meet graduation requirements. For many, it was an intervention that helped students who were behind catch up and earn their degree. Still, the scale is striking.  

About 20 percent of all district seniors took one in 2016. About 92 percent of those who did passed. 

That shockingly high pass rate may, in part, have had something to do with how shockingly easy it was to cheat in those classes. Koran spoke to both students and teachers who laid out in explicit detail how pervasive the practice was.  

It wasn’t just San Diego Unified students who flagged the kinds of programs used in the district. Education experts nationwide also raised alarm bells about such programs.  

One teacher in Georgia told Koran: “Essentially what we have is widespread fraud in public school systems and the people who are benefiting from it are the people who are in charge of public school systems.” 

Thankfully, all these years later, as online education has become evermore popular, we’ve completely figured out how to combat widespread cheating. Nor has AI elevated cheating to a systemwide crisis that endangers the concept of education itself.  

Nope. No, siree. Everything’s peachy. 

The Aftermath 

Like most impactful reporting, Koran’s work didn’t make district officials happy. For months, they sniped at Koran, and Voice of San Diego, claiming his reporting had no evidence.  

But then a series of audits and reports came out that showed what he, and Voice editors, had long maintained: There was reason for concern.  

Included in those reports were district-specific recommendations, like the suggestion that San Diego Unified track the education outcomes of students who transfer out of their schools, and systemwide concerns that California’s graduation rate calculation may bake in inaccuracies and not comport with federal guidelines. 

Nearly a decade later, San Diego Unified officials are still learning new graduation lessons. In April, the district’s board voted to reverse course on its old rigorous standards that ensured all students were UC and CSU eligible when they received their diploma. The April vote created new graduation pathways, some of which prioritize career and technical education. Those pathways could mean students don’t have that smooth on-ramp to higher education. 

It’s a wonky concept, but it could have big implications. District officials originally adopted the old requirements because thousands of students were graduating without the classes they needed to head straight to college. Those students tended to be disproportionately Black and Latino. 

This change could, if not monitored carefully, replicate that same old inequitable system. Then again, it could also – surprise, surprise – increase San Diego Unified’s graduation rate.