Scotching Newsom’s claim that CA’n students thrived during Covid

Refuting Gov. Newsom’s assertion that Golden State students performed better than most of the nation from 2019–2022, the California Globe’s Katy Grimes breaks down why recent educational assessment data isn’t all that impressive: Test scores were already at a low ebb in 2019, so pandemic shutdowns didn’t tremendously worsen them. Covid may not be to blame for CA’s “F”-graded policies, suggests Grimes.

Sunday night at 10:06pm, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a press release claiming just released educational assessment data shows that California performed better than most other states and the nation from 2019-22 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress data.

Except fewer than half of California students met the state standard in English, and only one-third of students met statewide standards for mathematics.

Newsom even claimed National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data show California students held steady in reading while the nation declined, lost less ground in math than students nationally.

Only the issue isn’t comparing California’s students against other states’ kids; the issue is that school kids in California did poorly on the state proficiency tests, and were already performing poorly in 2019 before Newsom’s lockdowns of public schools for two years.

On the National Assessment of Educational Progress results in reading and math for 4th and 8th graders nationwide, Gov. Newsom claims “California’s NAEP reading scores remained relatively steady while most other states and the national average showed declines, and math scores didn’t decline as much as most other states or the national average.”

Not so fast, Governor.

The Globe again spoke with Lance Izumi, Senior Director of Education at the Pacific Research Institute, who says the Governor is putting out a lot of balderdash. “California students already were in a low place to begin with,” Izumi said. He looked at the proficiency rates in California for 2019 8th grade math and reading tests against 2022 results….

Izumi said each demographic group, white, African American, and Hispanic students, had significant math proficiency decline from 2019 to 2022.

This article originally appeared in the California Globe. Read the whole thing here.

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Image by Andy Barbour