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.

As Gov. Gavin Newsom wages a high-profile campaign to prevent sudden spikes in gasoline prices, California air regulators are quietly pushing through a policy change of their own that could raise pump prices by almost a half-dollar a gallon or more.

Newsom recently called a special legislative session to consider controversial new controls on state oil refineries, and the California Air Resources Board — the state agency tasked with regulating planet-warming emissions — soon will consider stricter limits on the carbon intensity of fuels.

In September of last year, CARB estimated that the change could lift gasoline prices 47 cents a gallon, or $6.4 billion a year.

Other analysts put the price even higher — 65 cents a gallon, or $8.8 million a year.

Now, as CARB nears a November vote on its low carbon fuel standard, or LCFS, the agency is backing away from its price hike forecast. Recently, an air board official told legislators that the 47-cents-a-gallon estimate was just a “snapshot” based on a forecasting model that “can never capture real world conditions.” However, the agency has refused to offer a revised estimate to the public.

Legislators from both parties are now voicing frustration over what they say is CARB’s troubling lack of transparency.

Some legislators are questioning whether the air board has become too powerful and requires more oversight from elected officials.

“For me, this special session has been about ensuring that gas prices are going down,” said Assemblymember Corey Jackson (D-Perris). “And certainly, if CARB is creating regulations that will increase gas prices, we’re going to have to take a look at that and see if we have to rein in their authority.”

What concerns him most, Jackson said, is the board’s resistance to acknowledging the consumer costs of its forthcoming policies. “The increased quality of our air may be worth higher prices,” he said, but he doesn’t understand how keeping forecasts under wraps encourages public debate over government policy.

Assemblymember Joe Patterson (R-Rocklin) shares Jackson’s concern. “Maybe the cost is worth it because we’ll have cleaner air,” he said. “But how do you make informed decisions if you don’t want to know about all the possible outcomes?”

He also questioned the timing of the special session. “It just feels like the governor is more concerned about sticking it to the oil companies than he is about the actual costs of gasoline.”

Assemblymember Blanca Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) was traveling and unavailable for an interview, but emailed the following: “While the Legislature is currently working to address petroleum price spikes through the public process, it is unfortunate CARB is unwilling to provide an estimate of the monetary impacts amendments to the LCFS will have. This process is intended to be public and collaborative, but the Legislature will struggle to make significant positive impacts to fuel prices if CARB is unwilling to address the role their regulations play in determining prices.”

The air board’s November vote centers on amendments to the LCFS, a carbon market program that took effect in 2011. The program penalizes refineries that make high carbon fuel, such as diesel and gasoline, and benefits makers of lower carbon fuels such as renewable diesel.

The amendents would impose far stricter limits on the carbon intensity of fuels, leading to far higher costs for refineries to buy credits to comply with the law. Extra costs are passed through to consumers at the pump. But the air board won’t will talk about how much that might be.

CARB’s chief, Steven Cliff, told The Times that no new numbers will be forthcoming because “what we are not equipped to do is analyze what the effect would be on retail gasoline prices.” Instead, “we look at all the economic impacts” including economic growth, job creation and public health.

On that basis, Cliff said, the amendments are a net positive for Californians.

Asked whether estimating fuel costs and releasing the figures might help inform public policy, Cliff said: “We put out the analysis that is mandated by law.”

CARB critics believe fuel price transparency is required so lawmakers can weigh climate policy trade-offs and ultimately answer to their constituents.

It’s not only legislators who are concerned about CARB’s approach, however.

Danny Cullenward is a carbon markets expert and vice chair of California’s Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee. He’s the analyst that used data also available to the air board to come up with his estimate of per-gallon costs up to 65 cents in the near term and possibly much higher in the long term for policies under the air board’s consideration.

Cullenward said CARB needs to release more information, and that the air board in November will be making an “opaque regulatory decision that will take place three days after the election,” when media attention will be elsewhere.

On Monday, Cullenward released a paper written for the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania on the fuel standards issue. “Rather than discuss these implications openly, the regulator has distanced itself from its own initial assessment of costs,” he wrote.

Cullenward is considered a champion of carbon reduction, but sometimes takes flak when he questions the efficacy of some carbon market programs. The air board’s fuel standards policies, he believes, favor lower-carbon biofuels over far cleaner electrification of transportation.

He’s not surprised that the Legislature is suddenly paying more attention to CARB. Although the fuels program “is regularly reviewed and updated every few years, it has not been guided by specific legislation since implementation — despite its evolution into a multi-billion-dollar market with substantial environmental and economic consequences,” he wrote in his paper.

That could change.

“I think you’re going to start seeing a greater discussion about our willingness to give our authority to CARB’s executives, and even rein in the powers we’ve given away in the past,” said Jackson, the assembly member.