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Factsheet 1 (PDF): Health Risks, Resilience, and the Academic Performance Index
This is a brief report that describes how schools where students are low in health risk factors and high in protective factors have higher API scores than other schools. Factsheet 1 is based on the longer report described under Health and Achievement, below.
Factsheet 2 (PDF): Student Tobacco Use and TUPE Competitive Grant Funding
This brief report examines trends in student tobacco use in high schools with competitive TUPE grants and schools without such grants. The results indicated that high schools that received TUPE grants have been more successful than other schools in reducing tobacco use and its precursors.
Factsheet 3 (PDF): Are Student Health Risks and Low Resilience Assets an Impediment to the Academic Progress of Schools?
This Factsheet describes how health risk and resilience are longitudinally related to subsequent changes in standardized test scores. The results indicate that health risk and low levels of resilience assets impede the progress of schools in raising test scores.
Factsheet 4 (PDF): Bias-related Harassment among California Students
This Factsheet uses CHKS data to analyze the prevalence of harassment in California Schools, and correlate that harassment with a variety of other behaviors. The results of this analysis indicate that in addition to the negative physical and mental effects of harassment itself, students who are harassed are at greater risk of a wide range of detrimental behaviors and experiences, including poorer grades, school attendance, feelings related to depression, and substance abuse.
Factsheet 5 (PDF): Links between Cigarette Smoking and Other Substance Use, Violence, and School Problems
This Factsheet summarizes the results of an analysis of CHKS data on AOD use, violence and school problems among middle and secondary school students, comparing 'current smokers' with 'nonsmokers'.
The analysis used CHKS data collected from 568,000 secondary students across California in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 school years.
The results suggest that cigarette smoking among youth has become a marker for other risk behaviors and problems, especially among 7th graders, and that efforts to reduce student smoking will be more successful if embedded in approaches that address a broad range of risk behaviors and problems.
Factsheet 6 (PDF): Substance Use and Other Problems Among Youth in Foster and Relative Care
This Factsheet summarizing the results of an analysis of substance abuse and other risk behaviors, school problems, and resilience, among secondary students in foster care or living with a relative other than a parent, compared to youth living with a parent.
The analysis used data from 148,869 9th and 119,817 11th graders in 318 school districts throughout the state that administered the CHKS in the 2005-06 school year.
Compared to Parent Home Youth, the Foster Care Youth reported much higher rates of substance abuse, poor school attendance and grades, and more violence-related behaviors, as well as harassment and feelings of incapacitating sadness. They also were more likely to be low in caring adult relationships and total environmental assets. Relative Home Youth tended to fall in the mid-range.
The results demonstrate that youth in foster care or living with a relative, although a relatively small segment of the student population, are at elevated risk of multiple problems and need to be targeted for comprehensive and supportive prevention and intervention services.
Factsheet 7
(PDF): Risk Behaviors and Problems Among Youth in Nontraditional Schools
This factsheet summarizing the results of an analysis of risk-taking behavior among students that attend Nontraditional Schools such as Continuation and Community Day Schools, compared to 11th graders.
The analysis used data from 25,600 NTS students and 182,000 11th graders throughout the state that administered the CHKS in the 2004 through 2006.
It finds generally higher rates of substance use among Nontraditional School students when compared to Grade 11 students, and concludes that “there is much more to be done to create the intimate, nurturing atmosphere that nontraditional schools need to ensure these high-risk youth are reconnected with school and graduate”.
Factsheet 8
(PDF): The Achievement Gap, School Well-Being, and Learning Supports
The factsheet summarizes a study of how academic performance and school well-being vary by the racial/ethnic composition of schools. School well-being refers to a school having a developmentally positive learning climate characterized by environmental supports, safety, and school attachment, as measured by student-reported data collected in 2004-06 by the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS).
Both academic performance and school well-being varied consistently and persistently across schools by racial/ethnic groupings. They were lowest in schools with large proportions of African American and Hispanic students, as well as in low-income schools, which have high enrollments of both groups. Controlling for SES and other school demographic characteristics reduced these racial/ethnic group differences but they still remained between these schools and those serving predominantly White students.
This suggests that school-climate factors related to student well-being may also play a role in the gap and that one strategy to close it is to enhance learning supports that foster caring adult relationships, high expectations, meaningful participation, safety, and connectedness in schools serving large proportions of low-income African American and Hispanic students.