California’s Latest CAASPP Test Scores Reveal a Continuing Education Crisis

Last week, the California Department of Education released CAASPP (state standardized test) results for the 2025-26 school year. While Governor Newsom says the scores are evidence of “continued progress,” the numbers tell a different story.

In a continuation of California’s chronically poor academic performance, just under half (49.3 percent) of California public school students scored at or above proficient in English language arts (reading, writing and comprehension). And in keeping with the historical trend, math proficiency continues to lag further behind, with just 38.6 percent of students scoring at or above proficient. A mere 36 percent of students scored at or above proficient for science.

For reading, math, and science, respectively, these scores increased by 0.5, 1.3, and 3.3 percentage points from last year. Governor Newsom touted the increases in proficiency rates, but those modest gains offer little cause for celebration when fewer than half of California students are proficient in any of the three subjects.

California’s 2025-26 state budget allocated a total of $137.6 billion for the state’s TK-12 public school system. This constitutes a $3.8 billion increase compared to the previous year. And yet, the new results indicate California students are still performing more poorly in reading and math than pre-covid levels, when 51.1 percent and 39.7 percent of students scored at or above grade level for reading and math, respectively.

This is despite the billions of dollars set aside to help offset student learning losses resulting from school closures during the pandemic. The data is clear: not even throwing billions of dollars toward learning loss mitigation could overcome the devastating academic setbacks imposed on students by prolonged school closures.

This year, the state replaced its longstanding CAASPP assessment categories with new, less explicit labels. While the scoring categories used to be standard not met, standard nearly met, standard met, and standard exceeded, these have been replaced by minimal, developing, proficient, and advanced.

The new assessment category descriptors conveniently enable state leaders to present test results in new, more flattering ways. Education expert and author Lance Izumi explains that in a press release about the results, Governor Newsom “combines the grade-level categories of advanced and proficient with the non-grade-level category of developing to produce seemingly robust and impressive results.”

Izumi continues, “However, students scoring at the developing level do not meet grade-level standards. Combining developing students, who are not achieving at grade level, with proficient/advanced students, who are at grade level, deceptively inflates the final numbers to make the results look better for the governor and his legacy.”

This year’s CASSP results also reveal large disparities between the best- and worst-performing schools and districts in the state, with some schools attaining nearly 100 percent proficiency while others have an appalling proficiency rate of below five percent. These shocking disparities make it painfully clear why all California students need access to educational programs that work best for them and their families. A new federal scholarship tax credit could help make those alternatives more accessible — but only if California chooses to participate.

The scholarships can support students attending public, charter and private schools by covering qualified educational expenses, including tuition, tutoring, and special-needs services.

With academic performance this poor, California cannot afford to close the door on any opportunity to help students succeed.

Sheridan Karras is the research director at California Policy Center.