California’s first statewide release of standardized test results since the pandemic began painted a grim picture of learning loss as scores plunged to their lowest levels in years.
Some of West Marin’s schools have also suffered after two pandemic years, but the picture is complex, and administrators in the small districts cautioned against reading too much into the results. The pandemic wreaked havoc on student progress and wrested control away from educators. But some test scores have rebounded since last year, and the region’s small schools prefer to monitor student progress on a more individualized basis.
“When test scores are up, I don’t like to take a lot of credit or point to anything programmatically that we’re doing,” said John Carroll, the superintendent of Lagunitas and Bolinas-Stinson Union School Districts. “And when they’re down I don’t like to take the blame. We’re a great school regardless.”
Since 2016, California students in third through eighth grade, and 11th graders, have taken the Smarter Balanced Assessment, which includes math and English sections. In the interrupted 2019-2020 school year, no schools offered the test, and the following year, many opted not to, relying on local measures to monitor student progress. As a result, the state released no testing data for two school years.
The latest results, released last month, show California’s kids have lost ground since the pandemic. In the 2018-2019 school year, more than 51 percent of students met or exceeded standards in English, while about 40 percent did in math. Last school year, only 47 percent met those standards for English, and only 33 did in math.
At Shoreline Unified School District, West Marin’s largest district, scores dropped slightly overall in both math and English between 2019 and 2022. In both categories, the percentage who “met or exceeded” standards dropped by about one point among the 257 students who took the tests, and scores were below the statewide average. But compared to the school’s 2021 performance, the latest scores indicated some recovery.
Shoreline superintendent Adam Jennings said the district’s test scores can be used to measure its performance overall and to assess individual students’ needs. He said although scores are not “at the level that we want for all of our students,” they are helpful as a tool “to shine a light on areas and students that need more support, and also to show that in many areas, coming out of the pandemic, we are moving in the right direction.” Mr. Jennings said high school math needs improvement and could be helped with supplemental tutorial time planned for Wednesdays and Thursdays.
At Lagunitas School, the last district in Marin to reopen for in-person learning, scores declined in English—53 percent met standards, compared to 64 percent in 2019—but improved by more than 12 points in math. And at Bolinas-Stinson School, scores improved markedly. In 2019, 56 percent of students met or exceeded standards in English and 37 percent did in math. This year, more than 72 percent met the threshold in English and 57 percent did in math. At both schools this year, only around half of the students took the test, which is optional.
Mr. Carroll said his districts have implemented a common assessment in reading, and have focused on ensuring every student is at grade level for math when preparing to move on to high school. In Bolinas, where scores were especially high, students returned to the classroom much earlier than Lagunitas. Factors like an especially cohesive faculty group and new support staff have improved students’ readiness across both districts, but Mr. Carroll said it would be “fallacious” to think of the state tests as a good measure of the schools’ curricula. He said it’s common for a student to be doing well in classes but fare poorly on the test because the school doesn’t place a high priority on the exams.
At Nicasio School, students fared worse in both math and English than in 2019, though the small school also did better than it did last year. Principal Barbara Snekkevik said Nicasio’s rebounding scores were a good indicator of pandemic recovery, but since only 21 kids took the test, it’s more helpful to analyze performance on a student-by-student basis.
West Marin’s schools have long dealt with achievement gaps between white and Latino students, especially English language learners. At Shoreline, that gap widened between 2019 and 2022 on English tests but narrowed in math. Mr. Jennings said expanded affordable preschool and a newly hired English learners coordinator are key elements of the district’s efforts to focus on low-income and Spanish-speaking students.
Because data isn’t reported when a subgroup of students numbers below 10, comparisons between Latino and Anglo students are more difficult to make in Marin’s smaller districts. In Bolinas, for example, white students did far better on English and math tests this year than Latino students. But no equivalent data was published in 2019, and no data is available in either year for English learners. “We don’t need the state test to tell us that,” Mr. Carroll said of the divide. He said the school’s full-time biliteracy teacher is working to make sure English language learners aren’t left behind. Lagunitas had a smaller gap, but also a smaller community of English learners—just 3 percent of the school last year compared to 12 percent in Bolinas.
Last month’s release of statewide test data was fraught. After the California Department of Education declared it would be releasing the scores later than usual, it denied a public records request by EdSource. Critics, including a Republican challenger, accused incumbent State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond of delaying the abysmal results until after his re-election this month for political reasons. EdSource sued, and the C.D.E. released the data before the Nov. 8 election.
Though the Smarter Balanced Assessment scores showed a clear dent in learning that California schools will have to work to repair, the state avoided the plummeting math and reading results seen in other states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exams, sometimes called the nation’s report card.
California’s N.A.E.P. reading scores did not decline significantly, but economic and racial gaps widened in both disciplines.