PUSD 2022-23 CAASPP Results
Although aggregate scores year-over-year are not terrible, that's not the whole story.
At the December 14 school board meeting, I commented publically about my concern with the results from the 2022-23 CAASPP that were released in October. Parents and citizens making public comments are only permitted 120 seconds to make their point, so here is the rest. There has been more discussion about clapping than test scores over the last couple of months.
I’m a parent and active volunteer in the district. I have served on our school site council for multiple years. To this extent, I’m familiar with this data from working on the Single Plan for Student Achievement. I’m calling for the Board of Trustees and Administration to refocus its attention on education, grades, and test results. We clearly still need to overcome the learning losses that occurred from the closure of schools. Over the last number of weeks, months and arguably, years, there have been far too many distractions from what’s most important. Academics.
Recently, the 2022-23 results from the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) tests were published. This is the first clean year-over-year comparison we have had since 2019. I’d like to share some highlights.
As a district, 74.6% of students meet or exceed the standard in English, a year-over-year decline of 1.3%. 66.9% of students meet or exceed the standard in mathematics, a year-over-year improvement of 1%. While these results are better than the state of CA, they are again below 2019 PUSD levels. Let’s unpack that a little.
Over two-thirds of PUSD schools had a year-over-year decline in % of students that met or exceeded the standard in English. Almost half had a decline in math. More than a third. declined in both subjects. In fact, four schools have less than 50% of their student body at or above the standard in math. One school is below the state level of 46.6% in English.
Almost two-thirds of elementary schools did worse in English. Almost half, did worse in math. More than a third, declined in both subjects. All six middle schools did worse in English. Two did worse in math, and two did worse in both subjects. Over half of the high schools declined in English. Two declined in math. Two did worse in both. One high school has less than 50% of the student body that meets the math standard.
Students are struggling. Entire schools are struggling. Please refocus on what’s most important.
A racial demographic breakdown shows that Asian students regressed in English year-over-year but are flat to 2019 in English. They improved in math this year, but flat to 2019. PUSD Asian students have performed better than state declines. Asian students again lead both subjects and seemed to have recovered from Covid closure learning losses.
Conversely, African Americans had a 6-percentage point drop in English and a 3-point drop in math year over year. These are 5 and 12 points below 2019 respectively. This is three times worse than state declines. Only 31.2% of African Americans at PUSD meet or exceed the standard in math. It is worth noting that there are 87 less African American students enrolled than 2019, a 13% decline.
White students YoY declined 2 pts in English and remained flat in math. Against 2019 white students declined 3 and 4 points in English and math respectively. This is slightly better than state declines. Hispanic student year-over-year declined 1 pt in English and remained flat in math. Against 2019, Hispanics students declined 1 and 5 percentage points in English and math respectively. This is slightly better than state declines.
In closing, I would like to repeat my call for a refocus on academics, the primary reason for students attending public schools.
Below are links to my sources.
https://caaspp.edsource.org/sbac/poway-unified-37682960000000