Issue Brief: Student Achievement Fact Sheet
California Student Achievement:
How the state is failing to prepare students for college and careers.
THE LANDSCAPE
As of 2021-22 (the most recent year for which there’s available data), there are 5,892,240 students enrolled in California public schools across 1,021 districts. This is a 4.39 percent decrease from 2019-20, during which 6,163,001 students were enrolled.
The largest demographic of California public school students are Latino/Hispanic students, comprising 55.9 percent of California’s K-12 population in 2021-22. White students comprise the second largest demographic group (21.1 percent), followed by Asian (9.5 percent) and African American (5.1 percent) students.
57.8 percent of California students in 2021-22 were eligible for free or reduced-price meals; this is a metric commonly used to gauge student poverty. (However, in 2021, AB130 was signed into law, which establishes a universal meal program for all students by the 2022-23 school year.)
During the 2021-22 school year, there were 1,127,648 English learning students, or 18.1 percent of California public school enrollment according to the California Department of Education (CDE).
Total K-12 education funding in California for the 2020-21 year was $98.8 billion, equaling $16,881 per student. The K-12 education budget totaled $124.3 billion for the 2021-22 year, and $128.6 billion for the 2022-23 year. As of January 2023, the Governor’s proposed budget for 2023-24 allots $128.5 billion for all K-12 programs, amounting to “$23,723 per pupil when accounting for all funding sources” according to the CA Department of Finance.
Dismal Student Achievement Scores:
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS (ELA)
A 2022 EdSource Special Report reveals that “California fourth graders trail the nation in reading, and half of its third graders…do not read at grade level.”
The CDE’s most recent Smarter Balanced test results (2021-22) show that among all California students in third grade, under half (42.17 percent) met or exceeded standards for ELA. In addition:
Among economically disadvantaged third graders, only 29.41 percent met or exceeded ELA standards.
Less than one-third (30.61 percent) of Hispanic third grade students met or exceeded standards.
Only 26.62 percent of Black/African American third grade students met or exceeded standards.
California’s 2021-22 Smarter Balanced Assessment scores also show that just under half (49.22 percent) of students in seventh grade met or exceeded ELA standards.
37.41 percent of economically disadvantaged seventh grade students in California met or exceeded ELA standards.
Among Hispanic seventh graders, 38.56 percent met or exceeded standards
32.28 percent of Black/African American seventh graders met or exceeded standards
MATHEMATICS
EdSource reports that California students’ math assessment scores touch off a “five-alarm fire” in the state (2022).
For 2021-22, Smarter Balanced Assessment scores show that 38.26 percent of all California fourth graders met or exceeded math standards for their grade level.
Among economically disadvantaged fourth grade students, just less than one-quarter (24.83 percent) met or exceeded math standards.
25.31 percent of Hispanic fourth grade students met or exceeded math standards in 2021-22.
Among Black/African American fourth graders, only 19.46 percent met or exceeded math standards. An even smaller proportion of Black/African American fifth grade students met their grade-level math standards, at 14.29 percent.
In 2021-22, only 29.24 percent of all California eighth grade students met or exceeded math standards for their grade level.
Among economically disadvantaged eighth grade students, only 17.74 percent met or exceeded standards.
Among Hispanic eighth grade students, 17.48 percent met or exceeded standards.
Just 12.59 percent of Black/African American eighth graders met or exceeded math standards.
SCIENCE
According to the CAST (California Science Test) results for 2021-22, less than a third (31.19 percent) of all California fifth grade students met or exceeded science standards for their grade.
Among economically disadvantaged fifth grade students, only 19.01 percent met or exceeded science standards for their grade level.
The numbers are approximately the same for Hispanic fifth graders: 19.74 percent met or exceeded standards.
Science standards were met or exceeded by just 15.49 percent of Black/African American fifth graders in 2021-22.
The same year, only slightly more than one-quarter (26.82 percent) of all twelfth grade students met or exceeded grade-level science standards.
17.31 percent of economically disadvantaged twelfth grade students met or exceeded science standards.
Just 16.23 percent of Hispanic twelfth grade students met or exceeded science standards in 2021-22.
Just over one in ten (11.33 percent) of Black/African American twelfth grade students met or exceeded science standards.