Failure is a Choice: CA Students Still Testing Below COVID-19 Pandemic Scores in English and Math

“As California wallows in continued low student performance, a new study shows that school choice is making a positive difference in student outcomes in Arkansas.”

Lance Izumi, senior director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute.  He is the author of the PRI book “The Great Classroom Collapse: Teachers, Students, and Parents Expose the Collapse of Learning in America’s Schools,” explains “More than half of California students taking the 2025 state English exam failed to score at the proficient level.  On the state math test, more than six out of 10 test-takers failed to score at the proficient mark.”

While test scores slightly increased from 2024 to 2025, Izumi says the reality is that the 2025 test scores are still below test performance prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond had the audacity to boast of “boosted student proficiency in many areas.” Imagine that – the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction boasting about the more than half of California students failing to score at the proficient level in English, and more than 60 percent of California students failing to score at the proficient level in math.

Izumi continues:

In 2019, 51 percent of California students taking the state English test scored at the proficient level, while 49 percent scored at proficiency in 2025.  Also, just under 40 percent of test-takers scored at the proficient level on the 2019 state math test versus slightly more than 37 percent in 2025.

The performance picture for California students is even bleaker on the National Assessment for Educational Progress, the country’s main national exam.

On the 2024 NAEP eighth grade reading exam, a meager 28 percent of California students taking the test scored at the proficient level.

The story was even worse in math.  On the 2024 NAEP eighth grade math exam, only 25 percent—just one in four—California students scored at the proficient mark.

He laments that most California students in low-performing public schools have no way out and no alternatives, and are therefore forced to receive poor quality education in what amounts to government failure factories.

This starkly contrasts a growing number of states implementing programs to give students the opportunity to choose private school or homeschool, including Arkansas’ Education Freedom Accounts program, which has found “encouraging indicators on family satisfaction, retention, and student performance.”

A report on the Arkansas program by University of Arkansas Professor Patrick Wolf found “promising student academic outcomes.”

“On average, EFA students scored at the 57th percentile in math and the 59th percentile in [English language arts], meaning they outperformed 57% of students nationwide in math and 59% in ELA on nationally norm-reference assessments.”

And they realized participation in the program shot up from 5,548 students to 14,256 students—a 157% increase.

Read Izumi’s report at Pacific Research Institute, which clearly shows that failure is a choice.