Test scores for California public school students are trending upward — especially among Latino, Black and low-income children — but still lag behind pre-pandemic scores with a majority of all students placing below grade-level standards in math, English and science, according to state data released Thursday.
Statewide, economically disadvantaged students showed the strongest gains, with an increase of at least 1.4 percentage points of those who met grade-level standards across the three subject areas. These gains come as the number of students facing socioeconomic disadvantages grows — nearly two-thirds of all California public school students in 2024, an increase of more than 60,000 from 2023.
But even with the upturns among these students, their scores were sobering: 36.8% were proficient in English, 25% in math and 20.7% in science. The proficiency rate measures what percentage of students have met the California learning standard expected for a certain grade or subject matter.
Black and Latino students also saw increases across each subject of at least half of a percentage point.
The Los Angeles Unified School District — and several school systems including Compton Unified — showed particularly encouraging scores.
State education leaders focused on the bright side of the data.
“Today’s results suggest that California’s public schools are making encouraging gains in all of the key subject areas, and these gains are largest for our most vulnerable groups of students,” State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond said in a prepared statement.
The Department of Education has administered the Smarter Balanced assessments , which measure whether students are meeting state standards, since 2015. Students are tested in math and English in grades three through eight and 11. They are tested in science in grades five and eight as well as once in high school.
Pandemic setbacks for many students remain deep more than three years after education was upended when California campuses closed and schooling for many went online for nearly a year. The incremental score gains come as children and teenagers are still struggling with mental health issues and academic recovery.
Stanford University professor Thomas S. Dee said the state still has far to go to reach pre-pandemic levels. And at the rate of the increases, hitting those levels won’t happen anytime soon, he said.
“In many ways, society has moved on from the pandemic, but its impact on our kids' learning is still very much with us,” he said.
Tyrone Howard, professor of education at UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, said it was rare and encouraging to see gains happen across so many subgroups of students in California, but agreed that districts have more to do to make up for pandemic losses.
“The overwhelming majority of those kids are still not proficient,” Howard said. “I just hope we don't let the air get taken out of the room by saying that we've seen gains. We need to put those gains in context of how many students are still not really where we want to see them.”
This year's gains come as state and federal funding from the pandemic dries up. Districts are facing a tough decision over what programs and targeted interventions they are able to keep. That, paired with the ongoing decline in enrollment and chronic absenteeism, will make for an uphill battle in the years ahead, Howard said.
“The question becomes, will we then see a stagnation of this growth? Will we see a regression of it? Because a lot of resources that were used to get us to this point are no longer there,” he said.
He called wraparound services and community school investments vital to addressing academic performance, which suffers when basic needs such as food and housing aren’t met. Investment in high-quality instruction and addressing chronic absenteeism will also help districts through academic recovery, Dee said. Low-cost parental messaging could help them make headway.
The percentage of all California students meeting grade-level standards in English rose slightly to 47% this year, up under half a percentage point from 2023, but remains more than 4 percentage points below pre-pandemic scores.
Math saw the biggest increase among California students, with 35.5% meeting grade-level standards, up nearly 1% from 2023. Still, nearly two-thirds of students did not meet state standards and scores remain more than 4 percentage points below 2019.
Science scores are lower. Proficiency increased to 30.7%, and was under 1 percentage point below 2019. But put another way, about 69% of California students did not meet grade-level standards in science.
State education officials also called attention to score jumps at the sixth- and eighth-grade levels. The average score for sixth-graders increased 3.4 percentage points in English. Eighth-grade math scores were a particular bright spot, increasing 6.2 percentage points year over year.
Scores jumped significantly in at least three school districts, including L.A. Unified. California’s largest district and the second-largest in the nation saw increases that outpaced overall state jumps. English and math scores increased in nearly every grade level and demographic group, according to data from the California Department of Education.
“This is quite stunning that every single demographic improved,” Los Angeles Unified Supt. Alberto Carvalho said in July, when he released partial district data .
Only once before has LAUSD seen test scores improve across all grade levels since the testing system began in 2015, according to district officials.
Still, Dee said the data needs to be examined more carefully, since the student population has changed significantly over the last few years.
"I wouldn't want to celebrate it without careful scrutiny," he said. "Whether they are genuine improvements of student learning or something related to compositional change."
At Fallbrook Union Elementary School District in San Diego County, math and English proficiency increased by at least 5 percentage points.
In Compton Unified , math and English proficiency increased by at least 2.5 percentage points when compared with 2023. Supt. Darin Brawley, in a statement, attributed the improved test scores to its tutoring efforts, regular evaluation of performance metrics and the professional development it provided for its teachers.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .
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