By Carolyn Jones
CalMatters | San Diego Voice & Viewpoint

California’s K-12 students are emerging from the pandemic malaise, posting the most significant academic improvements in years, according to state test scores released today.

The Smarter Balanced standardized test results show increases for almost every student group and every grade, in every subject. Some of the biggest improvements were among students who have struggled the most.

“This is good news, we love to see this kind of improvement,” said Lupita Cortez Alcalá, executive director of Policy Analysis for California Education, a nonpartisan research organization. “It shows that the state’s investments in student mental health and other initiatives are working.”

In English language arts, 48.8% of students scored high enough to be considered proficient or advanced; 37% of students were in math. Those numbers both represent a 1.8 percentage-point increase from last year. By comparison, English language scores dropped a full point and math scores fell nearly 6 points after the pandemic and hadn’t budged much since then.

In 2024-25, science scores jumped 2 percentage points, to 32.7%, the biggest jump since California launched ambitious new science standards a decade ago. Until this year, scores had been stagnant due to the pandemic and slow rollout of the Next Generation Science Standards, which focus on hands-on projects and interactive, multidisciplinary lessons.

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Education officials attributed the surge in scores to a host of initiatives that sprung from the pandemic era but are just now beginning to show results on a large scale. Among them: community schools, a $4.1 billion effort to bring mental health, medical and social services to schools; a $4.7 billion expansion of youth mental health services at schools and elsewhere; the rollout of transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds; expanded summer and after-school programs; universal school meals; and the gradual shift to a phonics-based reading curriculum.

Much of the funding for those programs has been through one-time federal and state grants. The federal money has either expired or is in jeopardy due to President Donald Trump’s cuts to education, but Gov. Gavin Newsom has so far kept most of the state funding intact.

Test scores point to continuing struggles

The scores weren’t all good news. Students have not quite rebounded from the pandemic-related learning loss. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools were closed for more than a year in most of the state, students fell behind academically and generally disengaged from school. Attendance, though recently improved, has been a persistent problem for most districts. The test scores reflect that: English language arts scores still lag nearly three percentage points below the pre-pandemic scores, and math scores are nearly 2.5 percentage points behind.

The gaps between Black and Latino and white and Asian students narrowed a bit, but

gaps between low-income and wealthier students widened in all subjects.

“While it’s certainly encouraging to see overall increases in test scores, it’s unacceptable that the achievement gap has widened,” said Jessica Sawko, education director at the research and advocacy organization Children Now. “The persistent and widening gap must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”

Nearly 63% of California’s students are low-income, and schools get extra money to serve those students. The state needs to hold schools accountable for how well they’re educating low-income students, Sawko said.

Results for English learners who took the English Language Proficiency Assessment were mostly unchanged from last year.

Most school districts saw improvements, including Los Angeles Unified, which saw big gains in all subjects. English language arts scores jumped almost 3.5 percentage points, and math scores rose nearly 4 points. The district said those were the biggest test score increases ever.

Compton Unified in Los Angeles County also saw some of the largest gains in the state. English language arts scores soared 8 percentage points, and math scores jumped 6.5 points. Both scores far surpassed the state averages.

Superintendent Darin Brawley credited the improvements on a district-wide focus on data and accountability. Teachers regularly test the students, so they’re able to pinpoint who needs extra help. The district has also invested heavily in tutoring.

“I’m very, very pleased with our scores, but I’m not surprised,” Brawley said. “We work very hard to align our curriculum to the assessments, and make sure our students know what to expect. By the time the (state) assessment comes around, nothing is a surprise to them.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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