Last year’s California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, or better known as the CAASPP test scores within our district was especially low, creating concern for teachers and administrators.

CAASPP, although a state test, does not have an impact on grades. Many students may remember this test from elementary or middle school, as grades 3-8 must take this test. In high school, only juniors take the test, with the addition of a science portion. 

As the test does not impact a student’s grade, one may wonder what the use of taking the test would really be. The purpose of CAASPP, according to the San Joaquin County Office of Education, is “to give information to teachers, students, and their families about what students know and are able to do. It also indicates whether students are on track to be ready for success in college or career when they graduate from high school.”

The 2022-2023 school year CAASPP test results—for students from all schools—revealed that only 46.66% of students met or exceeded the standard for English Language Arts (ELA). For math, only 34.62% of students met or exceeded the standard. 

For juniors in all of California, the percentage for ELA and math were 55.41% and 27.35% respectively. 

The Santa Clara Unified School District’s average results revealed that 67.77% of SCUSD students are at or above the ELA standard, and 40.4% of the students met or exceeded the math standard. 

Wilcox High School results were higher than both the state and district average, with 69.83% of students meeting or exceeding the ELA standard and 41.65% of students are at or above the math standard.

However, administrators are still concerned about these results, as it has decreased somewhat significantly from the 2021-2022 school year. There has been a 2.8% decrease in ELA and a 1.63% decrease in math. 

CAASPP test results are remarkably important for teachers, specifically, to reflect on their students’ learning capabilities. According to the California Department of Education (CDE), “The primary purpose of the CAASPP System is to assist teachers, administrators, students, and parents by promoting high-quality teaching and learning through the use of a variety of assessment approaches.” 

According to the Los Angeles Times, “Morgan Polikoff, associate professor of education at USC’s Rossier School of Education, said ‘You can’t read that press release and not notice that there is no comparison at all to pre-COVID’ scores.”

The pandemic has caused many setbacks on education never before seen in history, and although most schools have gone back to full-time in-person learning, the impacts are notable. According to Stanford Graduate School of Education, a professor of inequality and poverty, Sean Reardon, states, “The educational impacts of the pandemic were not only historically large, but were disproportionately visited on communities with many low-income and minority students. Our research shows that schools were far from the only cause of decreased learning– the pandemic affected children through many ways.” 

Although CAASPP test scores do not impact grades, when applying for college, students have the opportunity to send their CAASPP scores to colleges. Specifically, according to CDE, “CAASPP scores are one of the multiple measures the CSU utilizes as an indicator of students’ readiness for college-level coursework in English and mathematics for placement of first-time freshmen… once they enroll at the CSU.”

Compared to last year’s scores, the state statistics of juniors meeting or exceeding standards have increased. However, there was a significant drop, of 4.44% for ELA and 7.39% for math. 

State test scores, in which we have seen drops in trends over the past year, demonstrate the areas that students tend to need more help in. Therefore, by reflecting on CAASPP results, administrators and teachers can make future changes to improve their curriculums for future students to improve scores.