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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.
Factsheet 9
(PDF): Racial/Ethnic Differences in School Performance, Engagement, Safety, and Supports This factsheet describes how 17 school-based CHKS indicators covering these areas differed significantly across eight racial/ethnic groups of secondary students. Overall, White and Asian students reported the most positive outcomes, and African American and Latino students had the least positive outcomes in regard to school performance, engagement, and safety. Latinos were the lowest of all groups in school developmental supports; African-Americans, in school connectedness and safety. The results demostrate that underlying the Achievement Gap, there are also gaps in school engagement, safety, and supports that need to be addressed.
Factsheet 10
(PDF): Harassment Among California Students, 2006-08 This factsheet updates Factsheet #4 in providing current and expanded data on Harassment among California Students, 2006-08. The results reported in the Factsheet suggest we have made little if no progress in reducing harassment among California secondary students, especially for race/ethnicity. Thirty-seven percent of secondary students self-reported being harassed at least once. Even higher rates resulted when students were asked about types of verbal harassment. Victims of harassment are more likely than the non-harassed to be characterized by school-related health-risks, feelings, and experiences that compromise learning and well-being. They are more likely to not feel safe at, and connected to, school; to have higher truancy; and to experience lower developmental supports at school (caring adult relations, high expectations, and opportunities for meaningful participation). Further, harassed youth reported higher rates of fighting and weapons possession at school, as well as risk of depression. Students who reported bias-related harassment had poorer well-being than students who were only harassed for other reasons. Victims of harassment based on disability and, to a lesser extent, sexual orientation had particularly high levels of these negative behaviors, feelings, and experiences.