Newly released San Francisco public school student performance data contradict Superintendent Maria Su’s glowing descriptions and assurances to the school board in June. At next week’s school board meeting, commissioners will receive and discuss Spring 2026 Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) student performance data that document a widening performance gap in reading for third-grade students and in math for eighth-grade students. The school board and superintendent have named student progress in these subjects as two of their primary goals. Most student groups that need the most help have fallen further behind.
At its final meeting before the June 30 deadline to pass the 2026–27 school district budget, school board members received the district’s proposed annual budget skeptically. A majority of the commissioners, including President Phil Kim and Vice President Jaime Huling, typically close partners of the superintendent, expressed caution and doubt. Earlier in the day, the superintendent had informed the board that if it failed to pass the budget by the deadline, the state could impose multimillion-dollar penalties or withhold certain state aid. In light of these consequences, President Kim stated, “I want to vote No but will vote Yes.” Vice President Huling expressed concern over a “lack of instructional leadership” to get students to where they need to be.
In addition to citing the money consequences of not passing the budget, Superintendent Su reminded board members about a “confidential email we sent to board members confidentially on what we are seeing in our SBAC scores.” Superintendent Su added that “I think that the strategies we have used over this past year … [are] getting the results we are hoping for.” She concluded that “[we are] looking at very promising results,” which validated the district’s strategies. After considerable debate, the board approved the budget proposal by a 4-3 vote.
In July, the Voice of San Francisco made a California Public Records Act request for the memorandum or the test scores. On Aug. 20, the district’s office of general counsel denied the request on the basis that “on balance the public interest served by not disclosing the record clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record.” On Aug. 21, however, the district released the third-grade test scores as an attachment to a subsequent school board meeting agenda.
The “promising results” turned out to be far different. Although the district heralded, “With a 2 percentage point increase from last year, SFUSD has started to turn the corner on third-grade students’ proficiency in literacy.” The 2-percentage-point increase simply brought the district back to 49 percent proficiency, exactly where the district’s third graders were in Spring 2024, before Superintendent Su was appointed. This year’s 49 percent score is still below the district’s most recent high point of 52 percent that it maintained from 2018 to 2023.
Based on historical gaps in resources and performance outcomes, California school districts produce data on students in “focal populations,” including African American, Latino, Pacific Islander, homeless, foster youth, and students with disabilities. As school board member Parag Gupta noted at the budget meeting, “Our job is to hold the entire school district accountable to reach the goals we seek to meet, especially for our focal populations.” The SBAC scores hailed by Superintendent Su show a four percent gain among Latino students this year after losing two points the previous year, but the score (24.5 percent) is just half of the district-wide proficiency mark. Among many other populations, third grade literacy SBAC scores are even below 24.5 percent, or have dropped significantly. The percentage of English Language Learners scoring at the proficient level dropped from 19.1 percent to 10.1 percent; homeless youth dropped from 25.2 percent to 13.5 percent. African American students dropped one point, while special education students showed no gain or decrease.
Eighth-grade math scores that will be presented at the Sept. 22 board meeting show a similar pattern. Overall, the district proficiency score increased by four points — from 41 percent last year to 45 percent this year. This result is higher than at any time since 2019, when 50 percent of the district’s eighth graders reached the proficiency level in math. Nonetheless, the district acknowledges that its progress is “off track.” The gap between the highest- and lowest-scoring racial groups grew from 52 percent last year to 59 percent this year. Some groups of students score as low as 7 percent proficient, while the strongest improvement highlighted by the school district among Latinos rose from 12.5 percent two years ago to 14 percent last year to now 16.9 percent.
At the June board meeting, Commissioner Matt Alexander expressed frustration that the district had failed to identify how its strategies produced positive student outcomes so the board could target or shift its investments. Without it, the district is “not seeing dramatic increases [but instead] falling farther and farther behind [our goals.]”
Accurately portraying how students do on their state proficiency tests has now become an accountability test for Superintendent Su.
