California Student Test Scores — Slow Academic Recovery Spars Debate

English, math, and science California student test scores showed slight improvements compared to last year, but remain below pre-pandemic levels.

According to recently released California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) results, the percentage of students meeting English learning standards rose to 49.3%, a 0.5 percentage point increase from the previous year. The standard-met rate represents students who achieved ‘Proficient’ or ‘Advanced’ grades.

While overall scores trended upward, they remain about 2 percentage points lower than pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Educational experts analyze that at the current rate of improvement, it will take about four more years to recover to pre-pandemic levels.

Math scores also showed minor improvements but remained low. The math standard-met rate rose only 1.1 percentage points from the previous year to 38.4%, while science rose 3.3 percentage points to 36.0%. In math and science, more than 6 out of 10 students failed to meet grade-level learning standards.

Racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps remain serious challenges. Black students showed above-average score improvements across English, math, and science, but standard-met rates remained at 33.7% for English, 21.5% for math, and 20.5% for science. The achievement gap with white and Asian students reached between 28 and 49 percentage points.

Regarding these results, California Governor Gavin Newsom positively evaluated that continuous educational financial investments are bearing fruit.

Governor Newsom praised the results, stating that they are important evidence that continuous investments—such as the expansion of Transitional Kindergarten (TK) for 4-year-olds, universal free meals, and community schools providing comprehensive support for students and families—are working effectively.

However, field education experts are raising concerns that the pace of score recovery is excessively slow.

Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University, pointed out that while scores are moving in the right direction, they fall far short of the necessary academic recovery speed, urging authorities to take more active and bold actions.

Meanwhile, clear academic improvement trends were captured in some school districts within LA County. Compton Unified School District’s math standard-met rate hit 46.5%, a sharp surge of 5.4 percentage points from the previous year. Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) also recorded a math standard-met rate of 39.7%, up 3 percentage points from the previous year, with both districts outperforming the California average of 38.4%.