Closing the Achievement Gap

The CTAG Project

In his 2008 State of Education address, former State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, announced that Closing The Achievement Gap (CTAG) was the California Department of Education’s top priority, and directed that questions related to racial and cultural issues be added to the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) and its companion California School Climate Survey (CSCS). CDE funded an expansion of the reporting system and materials to support the CTAG Initiativeand improve the data on school culture and climate, especially in regard to subgroups that may be disaffected.

CTAG Project Activities and Products

As part of this initiative, the following additional reports and resource tools are being provided:

A supplementary CTAG survey module was developed to provide better data on issues related to race, ethnicity, and culture within the school.
District CHKS Main Reports were expanded to include tables that provide the results for key questions by racial/ethnic groupings of students. A reporting system was also developed to provide all the CHKS results as reported by eight racial/ethnic groups. These CTAG reports may be requested by districts as a custom service.
Districts that administer the CHKS CTAG Module receive, free-of-charge, supplementary CTAG Reports that disaggregate all their CHKS and CSCS results by the race/ethnicity of students and staff.
A series of analyses of the statewide data collected from all districts was funded to shed light on how survey results vary among students and schools by race/ethnicity. Summaries of these findings are available in CHKS Factsheets #13 and #14.
A Workbook for Improving School Climate and Closing the Achievement Gap (pdf) was developed to help schools use their survey data to better meet the needs of different racial/ethnic groups, special education students, and migrant education students.

Reports

Secondary (Upper Grades) CTAG Reports, disaggregated by race/ethnicity of student enrollment

CHKS, Grade 7, 9 & 11 CTAG Report, 2008-2010, Statewide (pdf) New! (inlcudes the first report of the CTAG Module results)
CHKS, Grade 7 CTAG Report, 2007-2009, Statewide (pdf)
CHKS, Grade 7 CTAG Report, 2006-2008, Statewide (pdf)
CHKS, Grades 9 & 11 CTAG Report, 2007-2009, Statewide (pdf)
CHKS, Grades 9 & 11 CTAG Report, 2006-2008, Statewide (pdf)