{"id":500362,"date":"2026-10-18T19:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T19:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/500362\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T19:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T19:06:11","slug":"california-school-test-scores-up-but-just-a-little-as-progress-slows-in-k-12-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/500362\/","title":{"rendered":"California School Test Scores Up, but Just a Little, as Progress Slows in K-12 Classes"},"content":{"rendered":"

K-12 student test scores rose slightly last year in California, while enrollment numbers dropped.<\/p>\n

Carolyn Jones, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Leo Pham leads the way to his classroom after Jose Ortega Elementary School\u2019s first morning circle of the school year on August 17, 2026, in San Francisco. Test scores across schools in California slightly rose last year. \u00a0(Miles Cull\/KQED)<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

California<\/a>\u2019s K-12 student test scores improved slightly in almost all categories last year, but progress slowed following a post-pandemic surge, according to state data released this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s slow but steady improvement,\u201d said Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the State Board of Education. \u201cIt suggests we\u2019re continuing to come out of the pandemic, and there\u2019s still a lot of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The percentage of students proficient in math jumped just over 1 percentage point \u2013 to 38.5% \u2013 and the number of students proficient in English language arts rose half a percentage point, 49.3%. Science scores increased 3.3% percentage points, to 36%.<\/p>\n

\"\"Students read during class at Sylvia Mendez Elementary School in Berkeley on June 3, 2026.\u00a0(Beth LaBerge\/KQED)<\/p>\n

For the first time, the state released its enrollment<\/a>, test score<\/a> and California School Dashboard<\/a> data together, making it easier for school districts to communicate with parents and the public and for policymakers to analyze gains and declines across broad categories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite the gains, though, scores were lower for some student groups, including white and Asian students, compared to 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic forced most schools to close for in-person learning.<\/p>\n

\nEnrollment decline continues\n<\/p>\n

Statewide enrollment, which has been falling for a decade, plunged to 5.7 million \u2013 a loss of 74,000 students from last year. Because the state funds schools based on the number of students who show up every day, the declining numbers will mean less revenue for many districts.<\/p>\n

Amid the enrollment numbers, a few changes stood out. The number of students with disabilities jumped 25% over the past decade, to 850,822. And the number of English learners dropped 30% over that same time period due to a decline in immigration among other factors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California Department of Education staff presented numbers with and without Highlands. Including Highlands, the state graduation rate was 87.9%, a slight increase from the previous year. Excluding Highlands, the rate was almost 2 percentage points higher \u2013 89.7%, the highest rate in decades in California.<\/p>\n

Highlands, under new leadership, winnowed its enrollment this year and is seeking to improve its outcomes after the State Auditor blasted it last year for alleged mismanagement.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s high school graduates also showed improvements in college and career preparation. According to the dashboard, the percentage of students who completed a career pathway or the A-G classes required for admission to the state\u2019s public universities climbed 2.2 percentage points, to 55.2%.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"K-12 student test scores rose slightly last year in California, while enrollment numbers dropped. Carolyn Jones, CalMatters Leo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-500362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}