Why 80% "Met or Exceeded" Can Mean Two Different Schools

California renamed the levels for 2025–26 reports. Standard Exceeded is now Advanced (exceeded), and Standard Met is now Proficient (met). The score cutoffs stayed the same. The figure below uses the names in force for the year it shows. Our CAASPP guide maps all four labels.

What does “met or exceeded” count, and what does it leave out?

Each spring, most students in grades 3–8 and 11 take California’s Smarter Balanced tests in English and math. They are part of CAASPP, the state testing system, which also has a science test and alternate tests. Each student’s Smarter Balanced result lands in one of four levels. The state describes them as advanced, proficient, developing and minimal grade-level knowledge and skills.

“Met or exceeded” adds the top two levels together, so it can’t show how many results reached the top one.

On paper, an 80% could be mostly Standard Exceeded or mostly Standard Met. Advanced is the highest level on a grade-level test. It doesn’t mean a child is doing work above their grade.

The same headline also gets counted in more than one way. The California Department of Education (CDE) reports English and math separately, for each grade and for all grades together. A school’s SchoolScope profile gives English and math separately, weighted by how many students tested in each grade. The figure below averages a school’s English and math results for grades 3, 4 and 5 into one number. So its percentages can differ from the profile’s by several points.

Do real schools with the same headline differ that much?

Yes. Two real schools at about 80% look the same until you choose “Split by level” in the figure.

In California’s spring 2026 CAASPP results, Magnolia Elementary in Carlsbad and Canyon Charter Elementary in Santa Monica both had about 80% of results meeting or exceeding the standard. Those figures average English and math in grades 3–5. At Magnolia, the top level, Standard Exceeded, averaged about half (48%). At Canyon, it averaged nearly two-thirds (63%). Each school’s top-level share was within 5 points of the year before. The two schools also serve similar shares of students from lower-income families. In 2024–25, 21% at Magnolia and 16% at Canyon were eligible for free or reduced-price meals, according to federal NCES data. Among the 63 elementary-only schools near 80% with at least 100 students tested, the top-level share ran from 46% to 63%. Even with similar meal-eligibility rates and steady results, these two schools sit about 15 points apart in the top level.

This guide used to open with a made-up school where most of an 80% just met the standard. We expected to find real schools like it, but at about 80% we found none. Every school at that headline had more results in the top level than just meeting the standard. Lower down, it reverses: choose 50% in the figure, and most schools there have more results just meeting the standard than in the top level.

The Scope Score is our measure that places each school against others at its level. A percentile says where a school lands: one at the 82nd percentile scores higher than about 82% of the California elementary schools we score. Schools at 50% land much further apart on the Scope Score than schools at 80%. The schools at about 50% run from the 34th to the 85th percentile, across three of our four bands. The score also counts chronic absence, suspensions and the other measures on our methodology page. The split is only one part of what separates those schools.

What can the split tell us, and what can’t it?

The split shows where one spring’s results landed. It can’t show what the school added, or whether your child will be challenged there.

Prior preparation, changes in who enrolls and the size of the group could each help explain a gap like the one above. The percentages can’t separate those from the school’s own work.

Looking past one pass line is an old idea in testing research. A cut score is the score where one level starts. In 2008, measurement researcher Andrew Ho showed that the share of students above one cut score gives “limited and unrepresentative depictions” of score trends and gaps. He argued that serious analysis needs “a distribution-wide perspective” (Ho, Educational Researcher, 2008). He wasn’t studying California’s levels, and two categories are still a long way from the whole spread of scores. Splitting the 80% gives back one piece of what the headline hides.

Small groups swing more. In a grade of 40 children, each child is 2.5 points, so two children crossing a line move that grade’s rate by 5 points. The figure shows only schools with 100 or more students tested in English to keep the smallest groups out of the comparison.

Read both subjects, too. At 4 of the 63 schools near 80%, the English and math top-level shares were more than 10 points apart. A second year helps as well. About 8 in 10 of these schools had a top-level share within 5 points of the year before. None moved more than 10 points. All 5 pairs of these schools at least 15 points apart in the top level had the same school ahead the year before.

Where do we find the split for our school?

A public or charter school’s SchoolScope profile splits the latest year’s English and math results in its academic achievement section.

You’ll see the top level, the next level and below the standard, with a table by grade. Explore is the quickest way to find a school. The profile’s earlier years show met or exceeded only. For a second year’s split, CDE’s CAASPP results site lets you pick a school and a test year back to 2014–15. For the schools in the figure above, the figure’s full table also lists last year’s top-level share.

Two schools at 80% may both suit your child. The split helps you decide which questions to take to each one.