LAUSD students are falling short of the district’s academic goals, but progress is earning praise

The Los Angeles school district is falling short of meeting school board-mandated academic goals set four years ago, but students continue to make faster progress on key academic measures than the state as a whole, based on data released Tuesday.

The Board of Education’s presentation at the five-hour meeting kicked off intense scrutiny as leaders prepare for the district’s next strategic plan, which will take effect in July.

The data served as a check on what’s going on amid praise for LA Unified to come and receive from state officials applauding the district’s education good news.

By the level of its goals, the second largest school system in the country is likely to fall short on almost every parameter – sampling measures of reading, math and social emotional learning.

“Have we reached everything we promised we would?” Supt. Alberto Carvalho said in his speech. Not at all. And what you will see, whether it is in the private sector or in the government, no one ever achieves all the goals that have been designed.”

Besides, he said, the goals are not ambitious enough.

Several options for reducing targets in the next strategic plan were presented to the board by senior staff and consultants.

In terms of test scores, Los Angeles Unified recovered from epidemic problems in five years — something many public school districts have yet to do. On the 2025 tests, the LA school system surpassed its 2018-19 achievement levels, LA’s previous high-water mark under the current testing system.

Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom singled out LA Unifed for praising him in his State of the State address, noting that he invited Carvalho to come in person.

“I want to say this to the teachers, staff and parents of LA Unified school children, you should be proud [the] the progress you are making.” Carvalho, he added, “has just done a remarkable job.”

Reading and writing for third graders

The district’s goals are to choose reading in third grade because in third grade, students should be learning to read rather than learning to read. Those who do not read well in the third grade will have great difficulty in all subjects.

By 2022, the board-approved goal called for third-graders as a group to improve by 30 points on a measure called the grade-point average. In this scale, the number 0 denotes the grade level.

Here’s how it works.

If third graders as a group were combined to score zero, then third graders would, on average, be scoring at grade level on the English language arts portion of the state standardized tests.

In 2021-22 the average third grade score was 32.9 points below zero, or -32.9 – as calculated using the state’s standardized tests. Over the four years of the strategic plan, a 30-point improvement would bring third-graders to -2.9 points.

With one year to go, third graders are at -17.6 – a clear improvement but still well below the goal.

At their current rate of improvement, they will rise to -13.8 by the end of the fourth and final year of the program.

Another limitation of the grade-from-standard is that it does not provide data on what percentage of students meet academic standards.

LA Unified chose not to include that measure in its policies, which board member Nick Melvoin wants to change.

“I still think we want to make sure that what we do is transparent and connected to the community,” said Melvoin. “If you feel you’re 20 years below par, you don’t know if that’s really close to meeting your goal or your path, in the bottom line. And that’s why those performance standards are so important.”

On a different type of measure used statewide, about 43.6% of LA Unified third graders tested proficient or better in English language arts, closing most of the nearly five-point gap in the state over three years. The national figure was 44.2%

Across all grades tested, 46.5% of LA Unified students met or exceeded the state standard in English. Nationwide, the figure was 48.8%.

A similar account of statistics

Math scores, referred to in district scoring as “stats,” paint a similar picture.

Instead of relying solely on third grade, the district’s goals combined math results for grades 3 through 5 on one scale, and grades 6 through 8 on a second scale.

Math scores started below English scores, and the school district set a high goal of a 40-point-from-standard grade over four years. Once again, the district is no longer on track to get there.

In grades 6 through 8 in 2021-22, for example, students were at -81.1 on a grade-from-standard scale of zero. In 2024-25, they were -56.5. It will be a long way to reach the -41.1 goal by the end of this year.

Overall, in LA Unified, approximately 36.8% of students met or exceeded math standards for their grade level. Nationwide, the figure was 37.3%.

College prep also lacks a goal

At the second level, the 2022 strategic plan measured the number of students who were eligible to apply to the University of California or Cal State campus as a measure of success.

Credit courses in certain subject areas are required by university programs and students must earn a grade of C or better in each course. Passing this bar does not guarantee admission but indicates preparation for college courses.

LA Unified’s goal requires 70% of high school graduates to achieve UC/CSU eligibility by the end of the current academic year.

The percentage has increased – from 50.5% in 2021-22 to 58.4% in 2024-25. However, jumping from there to 70% in June seems unlikely.

A related concern is that inflation and other factors appear to weaken the validity of the measure across the country.

Between 2020 and 2025, for example, the number of first-year students at UC San Diego whose math skills fall below the high school level will increase nearly thirtyfold, according to the study. And 70% of those students fall below middle school standards, about 1 in 12 entering students.

It is difficult to track the development of public sentiment

The district’s efforts to measure the fourth goal – social emotional learning – have not been successful in the past three years. The district has yet to develop a process that provides meaningful information. Social emotional learning is related to developing and using the skills to understand and manage emotions, set positive goals, build healthy relationships and make responsible decisions.

Despite these difficulties, the board members seem inclined to continue trying to improve the social emotional learning rate.

“It’s one of the biggest things, I believe, in this program we call education,” said board member Sherlett Hendy Newbill.

Most board members also appeared to want to add a science measure, which has state tests in grades 5 and 8 and in high school.

Staff said they would consider the science proposal, and advised board members to limit the strategic plan’s goals to a smaller number. They said this would allow for greater focus and better accountability.