State test scores released Wednesday show San Mateo County schools saw little to no changes in students meeting or exceeding math and English standards between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years but education leaders lauded progress among student groups.
Thousands of students in third through eighth grade and 11th grade across San Mateo County took the Smarter Balanced math and English language arts assessments last spring as part of the state’s California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress.
The results, broken down into four achievement levels — exceeded, met, nearly met or did not meet standards — and released Wednesday, show scores were largely unchanged. Overall, about 58% of students met or exceeded English language arts standards and 50% met or exceeded math standards for the 2022-23 school year. In the 2021-22 school year, about 59% of students met or exceeded English standards and 49% met or exceeded math standards.
Data is not available or is incomplete for the 2019-20 or 2020-21 school years due to the pandemic but figures for 2018-19 show about 61.54% of students countywide met or exceeded ELA standards while 53.37% met or exceeded math standards, indicating academic losses experienced during the pandemic have yet to be reversed.
“Overall scores for San Mateo County students held steady even as our youth experienced unprecedented behavioral health challenges over the last two years,” County Superintendent Nancy Magee said in a press release Wednesday.
Results by district
Broken down by school district, some saw higher performance rates than others, according to CAASPP data published on its website and aggregated by EdSource, an independent education-focused news outlet and resource.
Some of the highest scores were seen in the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District with about 81% meeting or exceeding ELA standards and about 77% meeting or exceeding math standards, and San Carlos School District with about 80% meeting or exceeding ELA standards and about 77% meeting or exceeding math standards.
“The San Carlos School District is proud that the work of our educators over the past three school years, in both academic standards and the development of the whole child, is showing results in the form of strong state test scores,” Hans Barber, assistant superintendent of Educational Services for the San Carlos School District, said. “What’s more, results show significant gains in proficiency for Students with Disabilities and Students Experiencing Poverty. We want to accelerate learning for all students and will use our Strategic Plan and specifically our Learner Profile to focus our work on this goal.”
Meanwhile, the Redwood City School District saw about 46.4% of students meet or exceed ELA standards while 37% met or exceeded math standards and about 43.34% of San Bruno Park School District students met or exceeded ELA standards while 38% met or exceeded math standards.
Investing in improvements
Matthew Duffy, superintendent of the San Bruno Park School District, noted the district saw growth in math scores between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years. About 3.5% more students met or exceeded math standards in 2022-23 compared to 2021-22.
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At the campus level, four of five elementary schools saw an 8% uptick in the number of students meeting or exceeding math standards and significant gains in ELA were made at three of five elementary schools, Duffy noted.
Looking to improve student outcomes, Duffy said the district has invested in a new program targeting lower readers, partnered with the California Reading and Literature Project to better serve English learners, invested in reading and math specialists, instructional coaching, support for new students and other programming during and after school.
“We experienced strong growth across our elementary schools especially in math,” Duffy said in an email. “We are excited about our progress and firmly believe we will see continued growth for our students this year and in the years beyond.”
In the largest district in the county, the San Mateo-Foster City School District, about 55.6% of students met or exceeded ELA standards, a 2.13% decline from the year prior, and 51% met or exceeded math standards, a 0.5% decrease.
Socioeconomically disadvantaged students trailed substantially in both subjects compared to those not in the category, as did Black, Hispanic and Pacific Islander students compared to their white and Asian peers, according to the state data. That trend rings true and extends back years across most school districts.
Superintendent Diego Ochoa said in an email statement that his district has increased spending on science, technology, engineering, math, arts and music education by 35% compared to last year, hired an additional 40 teachers on special assignment to help mentor, coach and support educators daily, and have invested in other professional development and education programming to help improve student outcomes.
“We’re very proud of our students, teachers, staff and administrators. Our scores have remained high, and key subgroups of students continue to score higher than before the pandemic. Our new scores show some gains in certain grade levels and some decreases in others over last year,” Ochoa said in a statement. “We expect next year’s scores to show systemwide improvement as we deepen all our instructional strategies. I encourage parents to use the CDE online tool to access and review school test scores, district test scores and countywide test scores.”
Scores for English learners were low across the county — 14% met or exceeded ELA standards while 14.5% met or exceeded math standards — but those numbers don’t account for students who were recently reclassified as English proficient, the Office of Education noted in its press release.
Test results also show major divides in ELA and math performances for 11th graders. About 72% of San Mateo Union, 70% of Sequoia Union and 65% of South San Francisco Unified high school district students met or exceeded ELA standards while about 48% of San Mateo Union, 50% of Sequoia Union and 39.6% of South San Francisco Unified high school district students met math standards.
But the County Office of Education noted Black students in Sequoia and San Mateo union high school districts saw substantial improvements. The office credited Sequoia Union High School District’s improvements to recent changes in math and science course pathways.
“Many of our districts have been doing significant work around equity,” Magee said in the press release. “And shifts in outcomes, especially for African American students, demonstrate that when systems change to better serve students, positive results ensue.”
(5) comments
Excellent comments Terence, MichKosk, and Goring!
Might I add, per the flyer in our recent tax bills, the largest portion of our tax dollars -- 51% --- go to education. That's paid by all tax payers, regardless of whether or not they have ever had kids in schools.
Also I refer to the seminal work of the great Charles Murray in his Book "The Bell Curve." (1994) He describes and documents all that we are now experiencing in the schools, as described in this article. These situations have been going on for decades. The difference is that in the last few years the government, school systems, outside activist groups, and unions, have encouraged/demanded, that money be thrown at the problem (CRT etc.) in the form of adding copious amounts of "special" teachers and extra administrative positions. As we can see, to no avail. I read about the same statistics and problems in other schools in California, up and down the state.
Solution - A return to teaching, rather than indoctrination. And a return to motivation fun and right principles, rather than teaching them racism and DEI.
All good points Lou and info.
People put little value in things that are free. Start charging tuition to the parents whose kids are in public school, and see if their attitude towards their children receiving a real education changes when they have to pay for them. Perhaps they will then get involved in their kids' education, ensure they do their homework, participate in their lives, and set an example of responsible behavior.
More evidence that giving more money to public education does not lead to better outcomes. Not only that but these results are with declining public education enrollments. The next time you see another plea for more money “for the kids” (and you will, year in and year out) please know that the money is mostly for pensions and benefits. This article is the evidence of California’s substandard education system.
Not surprising. For 18 months students were told that education was inessential and not important. This county had some of the longest school closures in the nation. I and a few others were screaming from the rooftops that there would be severe downstream consequences, but no one cared, irrational fear of a virus that everyone got anyway and placating teachers unions was more important than our kids. You reap what you sow. And now of course the "solution" is throw more money at the problem.
Who would be surprised? Parents crank them out, then realize I don't want to be a parent. Do not care and expect teachers to be their babysitters. Ignorant, uneducated parents are not involved. They get home, turn on TV and that is their example of who cranked them out. Not sitting down withthem and reading books to show any kind of example to them. BECAUSE THEY DO NOT WANT TO BE PARENTS! If you have to get a license to drive a car, one should have want to breed.
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