The first round of testing measurements for the year show the local school district generally on par with past results, including a perpetual underperformance of students who are not native English speakers.
The first 2024 meeting of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) Board of Education dealt with data from the prior year, as results from the 2023 California School Dashboard were shared with board members by SMMUSD Director of Assessment, Research and Evaluation Dr. Stacy Williamson.
An annual report from the California Department of Education, the dashboard shows district performance and progress in 13 different areas that reflect the priorities of California’s Local Control Funding Formula and the metrics required by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. SMMUSD Superintendent Dr. Antonio Shelton stated that the dashboard provides meaningful information on school site and district-wide progress, and that data goes beyond test scores alone for a more “complete picture.”
Local education agencies throughout the state received one of five color-coded performance levels on various indicators, those being blue (very high), green (high), yellow (medium), orange (low) and red (very low). Williamson noted that color coding returned in the 2023 dashboard results since the state now has sufficient year-to-year comparable data for California districts.
Two main subjects, English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics, remained steady in the district compared to 2022. In the ELA indicator, based on grades 3-8 and grade 11 student performance on either the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment or the California Alternative Assessment, SMMUSD was coded “blue” for being 56.7 points above grade-level standards, up 1.1 points from 2022. Student lagging behind included “orange” or lower scores for the English Learners and Homeless groups, as well as “yellow” or medium scores for African American, Socioeconomically Disadvantaged students and Students with Disabilities.
Mathematics performance in the same assessments remained similar, with the district remaining 13.6 points above standards, down 2.6 points from 2022. Those in the lower scoring areas included English Learners, Hispanic students and Socioeconomically Disadvantaged students. Williamson said that while participation rate in the ELA and Mathematics assessments were at around 95%, those that do not participate are given the lowest score possible by the state, impacting the student groups that did not meet the 95% rate and skewing districtwide scores for the worse.
Participation rates within smaller student groups have a heavier impact in that groups’ assessment scores, such as the Homeless student population’s participation (28 out of 31, or 90.3%) being hurt by the three non-participants’ low scores. Reasons for non-participation include parents opting students out, students missing assessments due to absences, and/or students not finishing both components of the ELA exam (a writing component along with adaptive test).
“This is the second year that we [have seen] these types of penalties, and it’s something that our district has advocated a concern with at our local [Los Angeles County Office of Education] meetings, and we would [like to] see the dashboard representing our students’ academic performance, rather than a penalty applied by the state,” Williamson said.
One area where the district made what Williamson called a “big jump” was student English Language Acquisition results, measuring how well students understand English when it is not their primary language. In 2023, 45.3% of students who took the test progressed at least one English Learner Progress Indicator (ELPI) level, an increase from 31.1% of progression from 2022. Likewise, students who decreased at least one ELPI level were at 15.7% in 2023, a decrease from 2022’s 24.4%.
A continued area of focus for the district is in ELA and Mathematics data for English Learners, with both current and recently reclassified students in these groups declining in both areas. Out of current English Learners students, the 233 students who took ELA assessments fell to 60.8 points below standard, a decrease of 11.5 points from 2022. Although the ELPAC and ELA assessment reports point in different directions, they are different standards and methodology of tests for English learners, as the ELPAC incorporates speaking and listening components beyond the reading and writing-intensive ELA test.
The 236 students who took Mathematics assessments fell 7.6 points to 85 points below standard. Williamson said that the department is aware of needed improvements, and will implement designated and integrated English Language Development at school sites.
Graduation rate was in the “blue” for the district, as 95.2% of SMMUSD students graduated in 2023, though this was a 2.4% decline from 2022 results. District chronic absenteeism was given a medium “yellow” grade, as school year data counting students Kindergarten-8th grade who were absent 10 percent or more of the instructional days enrolled found that 17.1% of district students fit that criteria. This was a decline of 2.2% from the previous year’s data. The dashboard covers all absences, excused and unexcused, and Williamson noted that the number of chronic absentees is a “slow and steady” decline.
Indicators not color-coded include met standards in “basics” (teachers, instructional materials, facilities), implementation of academic standards, parent and family engagement, local climate survey, as well as “access to a broad course of study.”