There is a 10-point spread on average, showing how Pacific Charter Institute schools did not suffer the learning loss compared to the state totals.
No one will argue against the fact that the pandemic changed our children’s lives in ways we possibly cannot begin to imagine. Most recently, California’s K12 public school state test scores reflected a general learning loss across the state. No one should be shocked, considering frustrations ranging from school closures to the lack of computers in the field for students.
(If you share with me the memory of images of classrooms with elementary students in their desks divided into plastic walled cubicles, does it still send shudders down your spine too?) Well, while student mental and social health remained (and continue to be) front-line challenges for teachers, the state resumed mandated testing of students in grades 3-8 and 11 last spring, and comparisons of the recently publicized scores have been made to those of the pre-pandemic testing of 2018-19. Lo and behold, scores were lower than before the pandemic. We could have guessed it, but now we have measured it. The data shows a drop in the percentage of students that met and exceeded the standard scores in the tests by -6% Math and -4% English Language Arts. But hold on, there is a different story underneath this.