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Board reviews 2025 CAASPP results and cautions on small‑group volatility
Summary
County education staff presented 2025 CAASPP and School Dashboard results, warning that small subgroup sizes (as few as 15 students) can produce large percentage swings and that the state growth model compares students to individualized expected scores rather than prior‑year raw changes.
Jared Prolo, Executive Director of Research and Systems Planning for the San Mateo County Office of Education, presented the County Office’s review of the 2025 California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) and the 2025 California School Dashboard on Feb. 4, 2026. Board members asked for clarifications about how the dashboard treats small student groups, the growth model’s methodology, and the stability of graduation cohort calculations. Prolo told the Board that some foster and homeless student groups can be reported with as few as 15 students and that “true stability in the data generally requires a group size of roughly 150 students.”
Prolo explained the growth model does not measure year‑to‑year raw score changes; rather, it compares each student’s current score to an expected score based on prior performance and aggregates results against individualized growth targets. He also confirmed that California uses a five‑year cohort for graduation rates (students enter the cohort in ninth grade and are counted through a fifth year). Board members raised concerns that overlapping demographic categories and technical reporting errors can create misleading trends — for example, a school reporting zero chronic absenteeism one year and normal levels the next can appear as an extreme spike. The Board did not take action; staff said they will continue district coaching and systems‑level inquiries to address root causes and support improvement efforts.
