For the first time since COVID-19 hit, California students demonstrated slight across-the-board gains in math, English and science according to statewide standardized testing data released Thursday.

The news offers a glimmer of hope for some in the face of concerns about pandemic learning loss. But students’ results continue to trail pre-pandemic scores, and Bay Area schools’ performances varied.

Statewide, the number of students who met or exceeded grade-level standards increased a little less than half a percentage point in English and science, to 47% and 30.7%, and nearly a full percentage point in math, to 35.5%. Socioeconomically disadvantaged students also showed the strongest gains, with about a 1.5 percentage point increase in the number of students who met grade-level standards in English and science, to 36.8% and 20.7%, and more than a 2 percentage point increase in math, to 25% of students.

“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,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, the state board of education president.

But Alix Gallagher, director of strategic partnerships at Policy Analysis for California Education, an independent research center, cautioned against putting too much stock in the small changes reflected in the most recent testing scores.

“Some of these gains are so small, I don’t know that I would call them gains,” she said. “We are still years from catching up to where we were before the pandemic, and we still have under half of our students meeting proficiency standards. So I don’t think there’s a positive way to spin that at this point.”

The data shows that students’ scores in English and math continue to trail pre-pandemic results, and a majority of California students are still placing below grade-level standards in all three subjects.

The results come from the latest Smarter Balanced Assessments in English and math and the California Science Test, which students took in spring 2024. The assessments are computer-based, standardized tests used in several states, including California, to measure students’ understanding of content benchmarks in the three subjects.

Performance among some of the Bay Area’s biggest school districts varied.

Math scores in San Jose Unified increased at a higher rate, a 1.3 percentage point gain, but the district also saw a slight drop in English scores, with a 0.9 percentage point decrease. San Jose Unified students performed slightly better than the state average in all subjects, with about 49.5% of students meeting or exceeding grade-level standards in English, 40.9% in math and 26.4% in science.

San Jose Unified did not immediately respond to the Bay Area News Group’s request for comment.

Oakland Unified saw a slight increase in English and math scores, up 0.03 and 0.15 percentage points respectively, but still performed below state averages, with about 33% of students meeting or exceeding grade-level standards in English, compared to 25.6% in math and 20.2% in science.

The district’s director of communications, John Sasaki, said Oakland Unified is pleased with the increase in test scores but knows there is a lot more work left to do. Sasaki credited the district’s focus on improving literacy and community partnerships as one of the reasons for the slight bump in students’ performance.

“We have a long way to go before we have the test scores where we want them to be. Our students deserve more,” Sasaki said.

Fremont Unified saw across-the-board declines — a 2.2 percentage point decrease in English, 1.1 percentage point decrease in math and 2.7 percentage point decrease in science — but scores still outperformed both San Jose and Oakland Unified as well as the state averages. About 73.6% of students in the district met or exceeded grade-level standards in English, 68.5% in math and about 59% in science.

While the district’s superintendent, Erik Burmeister, said he was “incredibly impressed” by the achievement and resilience of the district’s students and staff, he also pointed out that test score data cannot fully measure students’ overall success.

“The instruction each of our students receives in the classroom and through needs-responsive intervention at each of our schools is outstanding,” Burmeister said. “Our work to meet students’ academic, social and emotional needs will continue, and the full body of their achievement will be celebrated.”

All three districts’ most recent scores continued to lag behind pre-pandemic results in English and math. San Jose Unified’s scores were down 5.6 percentage points in English and 2.7 percentage points in math compared to the district’s scores for the 2018-2019 school year, while Oakland Unified’s scores were down 0.4 percentage points in English and 1.4 percentage points in math, and Fremont Unified’s scores were down more than 5 percentage points in both English and math.

Gallagher pointed out that California lagged behind most states for student performance going into the pandemic and fell further and made less progress than many states after the pandemic.

“Even if some kids did better this year, I’m still really worried,” she said.

She pointed to the “fiscal cliff” and declining enrollment many school districts in the state and Bay Area are facing, as well as a youth mental health crisis, spike in chronic absenteeism and low morale among educators.

“Should we be happy about gains for students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged? Absolutely,” she said. “But I think there are fundamental system challenges that have made it hard for families, for students, for educators to recover from the pandemic.”

Gallagher also said the gains in this year’s scores were during a time when schools had extra funding and support from the pandemic. Federal COVID-relief funding for U.S. schools — which totaled about $190 billion — expired at the end of last month. California schools received about $23.4 billion in funds.

“I think we should recognize the way those funds supported improvement to the extent to which we’ve seen it and be really cautious about what to expect now that many districts are watching those funds just kind of evaporate from under them,” Gallagher said.

Originally Published: October 10, 2024 at 4:05 p.m.