California Education Officials Take Aim at Student Achievement Gap

As more than half of California’s public school students continue to fall short of grade-level standards in both math and English language arts, local legislators and education officials are proposing new legislation aimed at closing what they say is a state “accountability gap” contributing to lagging achievement outcomes.

The California School Board Association, which plans to campaign in Sacramento on Tuesday for a four-bill package, said the state currently lacks a coherent plan to increase student success.

“While school districts and county offices of education are held solely responsible for closing achievement gaps, the state controls major policy and funding decisions, and its systems remain fragmented and inconsistent,” CSBA said in a statement. “Local leaders are expected to deliver positive student outcomes, but the state is not held accountable for whether its own policies, budgets and agencies are aligned to or effective in supporting local success.”

Fewer than 40% of California’s public school students are proficient in math, and less than half meet English language arts standards, according to state data, which compiles annual test scores from students in grades three through eight, as well as juniors in high school. Among low-income students, foster youth and Black and Latino students, proficiency drops as low as 20%.

Troy Flint, a spokesperson for CSBA, said that to close those gaps, there needs to be greater state coordination.

“If I asked you today, what is the state plan for closing achievement gaps, you would be hard pressed to find that,” he told KQED. “The state of California has many programs and initiatives which are designed to address student achievement in some way, but they don’t have a cohesive, aligned plan that coordinates budgets, programs, implementation and support so that all agencies are rowing in the same direction.”

While California has comprehensive reports of individual schools and school districts’ performance, Flint said there isn’t similar oversight of the state’s efforts to improve student outcomes.

The bills would create a number of accountability measures, including an annual dashboard recording the progress of state efforts aimed at closing achievement gaps and a commission that identifies and assesses where school districts and other local educational agencies are seeing gaps in state support.

They would also require the State Board of Education and Department of Education to commission a plan of goals and benchmarks for the state to support local districts, and make changes to the system used to track attendance and other student data quarterly.

“California has invested billions in education, yet families still see achievement gaps that have not meaningfully improved in decades. We have a lot of programs, but not always a clear way to see whether the state’s investments are truly helping students,” said Stockton-area Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, who authored the bill to create the achievement gap dashboard.

In a statement, she said AB 2514 would bring about “transparency and alignment, so the state is working alongside our school districts, not simply asking them to solve this challenge on their own.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered schools and disrupted learning, just over half of students were considered proficient or exceeding progress standards in English language arts based on annual state testing, while about 39.7% of students met or exceeded progress standards in math. Those numbers dropped after school closures and distance learning, to about 47% and 33.4% during the 2021-22 school year, respectively.

Over the last few years, student test rates have started to rebound slightly, but still lag behind pre-pandemic levels.

Experts are also concerned about long-term, and in some cases, widening gaps between the state’s highest and lowest performing students.

English language arts proficiency among Black students was 32.75% last year, compared to 48.82% overall. In Math, scores lagged about 17.24 percentage points behind overall scores, with 20.06% of students at or exceeding grade level standards.

Among Latino students, English and math figures were 38.8% and 25.74%, respectively, while Asian students, who performed the highest, recorded 74.36% and 70% proficiency.

Socioeconomically disadvantaged students also had about 10% lower proficiency rates in both subjects. Foster youth had a larger gap: just 22.46% were at or above grade level in English language arts, while 13.17% met or exceeded math standards. Slightly more than 10% of English language learning students met or exceeded English and math expectations.

Flint said more affluent urban and suburban school districts also see higher achievement levels than rural areas.

The campaign to improve state oversight, Flint said, is about lifting overall student performance.

“The only way you’re going to do that really anywhere, but especially in a state with California’s demographics, is by targeting the achievement gap,” Flint told KQED. “We’re taking a broad perspective on this about how we can provide universally high education that reaches across all barriers and boundaries to support students … It’s about every student group that we can identify that’s struggling and uplifting them.”