Inside her fifth-grade classroom at Brandon Elementary School, teacher Jill Carlson sees her students slumped in their chairs during math instruction, feeling defeated.

And she is not the only one. 

While Goleta Union School District reported an almost 1% increase in math test scores for the 2024-25 school year, compared to the previous year, there was also a stark gap between Asian, Hispanic and white students’ test scores. 

Hispanic students in Goleta Union School District (GUSD) scored the lowest, at 46.1 points below standard. Meanwhile, their white and Asian classmates scored 47.2 and 64.7 points above standard, respectively. 

Carlson says the overall increase is not enough for her. 

Margie Ryckman, fourth-grade teacher at Isla Vista Elementary School, also sees the gaps firsthand and says there’s more to the test results than people realize.

“There’s so many other outcomes,” she said. “I think sometimes when we hear data, we don’t understand the context of it; it is easy to make assumptions and generalizations.” 

Victoria Aguirre, first-grade teacher at Hollister Elementary School, says the data makes her walk into her classroom every day with urgency. 

Inside The Classroom 

Carlson says during her most recent fraction and multiples lesson, her students struggled because they don’t have a strong math foundation from previous grades.

Brandon Elementary School teachers are using strategies such as focus groups to get their students up to grade level and past curricula to get their students, especially multilingual students, to explain their thinking. 

Carlson says that component has been a missing piece from Bridges, the current math curriculum.

Fifth-grade teachers at Brandon Elementary School are also using time once allotted for English Language Development (ELD) and Academic Language Development (ALD) for math remediation. 

“Our students who don’t go to ELD but still need their math facts are coming with me,” Carlson said. “The ones who are not in ELD and don’t need their math facts go with another teacher,” Carlson said. 

This is now considered to be “tier three” intervention, in which teachers are having to go below grade level to help students.

All of the fifth-graders at Brandon Elementary are in tier three interventions for math, Carlson said. 

Like Carlson, Ryckman addresses the problem head on.

“I tell my students all the time, ‘No one is leaving that door until we all understand, and I am guaranteeing you that you are going to learn this this year,’” she said. 

In Ryckman’s fourth-grade classroom, she prints out practice test questions that might show up on the Smarter Balanced assessments. 

She says the problems are presented “in a way that is quite hard” and this way her students can get adjusted to seeing the questions. 

Ryckman says it is also helpful for teachers to look at the current curriculum and reflect whether or not it will get kids to answer the test’s questions.

“I feel happy about my team working on that and being creative and more confident that my students are going to be ready for the test,” she said.

In Aguirre’s first-grade classroom, she prioritizes number sense with her students but struggles with how fast the current math curriculum moves. 

“It’s not skill targeting,” she said. “It is like here’s the concept, hope you get it, on to the next thing next week,” she said. 

She said the curriculum pushes first-grade teachers to start with teaching skip counting by two, except she says that is a giant leap in learning to make. 

“I don’t know if students know what addition is and if they know how to count by ones yet,” she said. 

The three teachers acknowledge memory recall is important for students’ success in math, but the curriculum doesn’t give them enough time for their students to master the concepts.

How Did GUSD Get Here

This is not the first year GUSD is seeing stark disparities between their students’ test scores.

In the 2023-24 academic school year, the annual English and math state test scores showed not only a drop in performance for GUSD students but highlighted the disparities among students with disabilities, socioeconomic disadvantages and racial backgrounds, Noozhawk reported. 

Aguirre said she is reminded of a quote when she reflects back on the data.

“Teachers don’t create gaps, students don’t create gaps, systems do,” she said.

Ryckman says the disparity in test scores between English learners and native English speakers comes down to developing their English language and literacy skills. 

What Do Teachers Need?

The three teachers agree they would like another person, like a teacher on special assignment, to help with intervention. 

Aguirre said it would be especially helpful to have a designated teacher and space for students to go for math help, similar to the current reading center students access to improve literacy.

But above all she says parents, the district and everyone concerned about the gap needs to trust teachers.

“It is not to say we are perfect and can’t learn, but we call ourselves lifelong learners,” Aguirre said. “We are doing research just like parents, management and board members.”