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Test scores

Pajaro Middle · Watsonville, CA
See how it ranks: all California schools by score · Monterey County schools by score

CAASPP Smarter Balanced, SY 2023-24

All grades, all students. % met or exceeded standard.
English Language Arts
16.7%
State avg 47.1%
District avg 25.0%
County avg 35.5%
-3.3pp since 2014-15
Math
8.5%
State avg 35.6%
District avg 17.5%
County avg 22.2%
-5.5pp since 2014-15

What this means: On the CAASPP Smarter Balanced, California's statewide test, about 17 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level and about 8 of 100 do math at grade level. Across all California schools, those numbers are about 47 and 36. Reading and writing scores are down about 3 points since 2014, while math scores are down about 6 points.

BeatsExpectations

Demographically-adjusted score · methodology
Tier
AS EXPECTED
Performing as predicted given the school's student profile
Actual proficiency
12.4%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
22.0%
based on CA schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-9.6pp
below demographic expectation

What this means: About 12% of students here test proficient in math and reading, compared with the roughly 22% typical for California schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations measures results against demographically similar schools rather than by raw scores, and this school falls within the typical range, neither among California's top nor bottom 10%.

BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual. How this is calculated →

By grade, SY 2023-24

School score vs state average per tested grade.
GradeEnglish Language ArtsMath
SchoolStaten testedSchoolStaten tested
Grade 720.3%47.3%14811.9%33.9%145
Grade 812.5%46.0%1294.7%31.6%129

9-year history

All grades, all students. Pajaro   California avg

English Language Arts

44202014-1548252015-1649222016-1750212017-1851242018-1947242021-2247182022-2347172023-24
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2023-2416.7%25.0%35.5%47.1%
SY 2022-2318.2%26.1%34.5%46.7%
SY 2021-2224.0%27.2%35.7%47.1%
SY 2020-21N/A75.0%55.3%49.0%
SY 2018-1923.8%32.7%39.1%51.1%
SY 2017-1821.0%32.6%37.6%49.9%
SY 2016-1722.4%30.7%35.6%48.6%
SY 2015-1625.0%31.8%35.1%48.1%
SY 2014-1520.0%30.3%31.4%44.0%

Math

34142014-1537132015-1638112016-173982017-184072018-193392021-223582022-233682023-24
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2023-248.5%17.5%22.2%35.6%
SY 2022-238.3%17.3%21.3%34.6%
SY 2021-228.7%17.3%20.4%33.4%
SY 2020-21N/A58.3%36.6%33.7%
SY 2018-197.0%23.4%27.0%39.8%
SY 2017-188.0%22.6%25.2%38.7%
SY 2016-1711.1%21.2%24.0%37.6%
SY 2015-1613.0%21.4%23.3%36.7%
SY 2014-1514.0%20.5%20.2%33.6%

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How to read these scores

What is CAASPP Smarter Balanced?
CAASPP (the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress) is California's annual statewide test. Public-school students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11 take the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments in English Language Arts and Math each spring.
What does "% met or exceeded standard" mean?
It is the percentage of students at the school whose scores were rated "Standard Met" or "Standard Exceeded" on the test. Those are the top two of four performance levels, and they signal the student is performing at grade level or above. A higher number is better.
What does 16.7% mean for English Language Arts at Pajaro Middle?
It means about 16.7 percent of students tested at Pajaro Middle performed at grade level or above on the CAASPP Smarter Balanced English Language Arts test in 2023-24. The statewide average for California that year was 47.1%. The other students fell into the lower performance levels.
How is the state average calculated?
It is a weighted average, not a simple average of each school's number. We multiply each public school's score by how many of its students tested, add those together for all schools in California, and divide by the total students tested that year. This way a big school with 1,500 students counts more than a small school with 50 students, which is the right way to ask "how did the typical student do this year?". District and county averages on this page use the same method, just scoped to that district or county.
Where does this data come from?
California Department of Education, CAASPP Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment. School-level "All Students" subgroup. Scores suppressed for groups under 11 students.
How often is it updated?
CAASPP Smarter Balanced is administered once a year (spring). Results are released by the state in the summer or early fall. We refresh this page after each annual release.

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