California School Chief Candidate Opposes Standardized Tests Amid Math Skills Decline

Richard Barrera, president of the San Diego Unified School Board and a candidate for California state superintendent of public instruction, has stated he would oppose reinstating standardized testing for University of California admissions. This stance comes at a time when concerns are growing about students' basic math skills.

Barrera, who has served on the San Diego board since 2008 and is currently a senior policy advisor to State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, is running against Chino Valley Unified school board president Sonja Shaw. He has secured the backing of the California Teachers Association.

In a recent interview, Barrera was asked about bringing back the SAT as a requirement for the UC system. "Absolutely not," he responded. He further stated, "So math teachers at UCLA and Berkeley and every place else, part of your job that you get paid by the taxpayers to do is to teach our kids."

When pressed on the idea of teaching fractions at the university level, Barrera emphasized support for students, saying, "We’ve got students who are coming up from incredible experiences, first generation students overcoming so many barriers to be on the campus. Those students are capable of learning quickly. What they need is a little support to be caught up. What they don’t need is to be excluded."

Barrera's position surfaces as questions arise about the accuracy of high school grades in reflecting college readiness. The number of college applicants reporting GPAs of 4.0 or higher has doubled over the last decade. However, state testing data indicates that students are still struggling to recover from a decline in reading and math performance following the pandemic.

Professors at prominent California universities have reported encountering students who lack fundamental math skills, including knowledge of fractions. This has fueled discussions about grade inflation.

The UC system ceased considering SAT and ACT scores for admissions in 2020, a move that followed persistent criticism that standardized tests disproportionately affect low-income, Black, and Latino students. Critics, however, argue that removing these exams has reduced the number of objective measures for assessing academic preparedness, especially as high school GPAs have risen.

Data from the California Department of Education highlights the disparity between high GPAs and academic proficiency. For the 2024-25 school year, approximately 57% of California 11th graders met or exceeded standards in English on the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments, while only 30.5% met the same benchmark in math. These figures represent an improvement from the 2021-22 school year's pandemic-era lows of 54.8% in English and 27% in math, but generally remain below pre-pandemic levels.