Recently released scores on California’s state tests in English and math show huge proportions of students failing to achieve proficiency in the basic subjects.
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.
Test scores did tick slightly upwards from 2024 to 2025, which gave State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond the opportunity to boast of “boosted student proficiency in many areas.”
However, the reality is that the 2025 test scores are still below test performance prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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.
Sadly, most California students in low-performing public schools have no exit ticket and are therefore forced to receive poor quality education in what amounts to government failure factories.
In contrast, a growing number of states have enacted and are implementing programs that give parents and their children the opportunity to choose alternatives to underperforming public schools.
For example, a new report on Arkansas’ Education Freedom Accounts program has found “encouraging indicators on family satisfaction, retention, and student performance.”
According to the report, authored by researchers at the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform, the two-year-old EFA program “empowers families to make the best educational choices for their children by providing financial resources for eligible students to attend an approved private school or homeschool.”
Eligible expenses include tuition and fees, instructional materials, tutoring services, supplemental supplies, specific technology devices, transportation costs, assessments, and uniforms.
For the 2024-25 school year, the program provided most families with $6,856 per student, with special-needs students receiving $7,618.
There are eight separate criteria for receiving an EFA disbursement, such as being a student with a disability or a student who attended a low-rated public school the previous year.
Empowering parents and giving them the ability to choose the educational alternative that better meets the needs of their children has resulted in EFA students performing better than their peers across the country.
According to University of Arkansas Professor Patrick Wolf, one of the authors of the report, “In our data on the second year of Arkansas’ EFA program, we saw promising student academic outcomes.”
Wolf and his co-authors found: “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.”
A norm-referenced test compares how certain students perform in comparison to other students taking the same exam, with the comparison expressed as a percentile rank.
Of particular note, “Home school EFA students scored at the 63rd percentile in math and 68th percentile in ELA.”
Wolf concluded, “Arkansas’ EFA program is providing families with meaningful choices and students are showing strong academic results.”
In view of the positive impact of the EFA program on student performance, Wolf observed, “It’s understandable then that families experience strong satisfaction overall and that more and more families would decide to participate.”
Indeed, in its short existence, participation in the program has shot up from 5,548 students to 14,256 students—a 157% increase.
Parents and children expressed their satisfaction with the program by staying in it. From 2024-25 to 2025-26, 91% of students continued in the program.
In California, too many children are being shortchanged by the public education system. Failure in school today will lead to dreams destroyed tomorrow. Other states, like Arkansas, are giving children a chance for a better future. It is time for California leaders to learn from their example and give that same opportunity to our state’s children.
Lance Izumi is 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.
