Students’ test scores inch up again

Statewide marks moving at glacially slow pace, some experts say, as achievement gap widens

In a steady but painstakingly slow pattern that has come to define California’s push for equity in education, statewide test scores inched up incrementally this year, though about half of the state’s students are behind in reading and only 4 in 10 students are proficient in math.

The results of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress tests, administered to about 3.1 million students in grades 3-8 and grade 11, were released Wednesday by the state Department of Education.

With the tests in their fifth year, the scores told more or less the same story of small growth they have been telling since the state began using the test to measure student performance under newer, more rigorous Common Core-based standards.

On one hand, education officials say, the scores are moving in the right direction: Statewide marks either rose or stayed flat in every reading and math portion of the exam, also known as Smarter Balanced, except for eighth grade math.

On the other hand, the scores are moving at what some experts and civil rights advocates have previously described as a glacially slow pace.

The state’s high school juniors were among the most improved grades in reading and math this year, but that rise followed a significant drop the prior year that negated gains made in lower grades.

A majority of students statewide, for the first time, were proficient in reading, but more than 49% of students still aren’t at grade level.

And though economically disadvantaged students seem to have improved at a faster rate than the rest of their peers in some areas, their passing rates in reading and math remain farther behind.

For example, 39% of the state’s economically disadvantaged students passed the reading exam and 27.48% passed math, but the rest of their peers passed reading (69.48% proficiency) and math (58.88% passing) at twice the rate.