The California Department of Education has released this year's High School Exit Exam results. They are the highest since the test was introduced, with 95.5% of students earning passing scores.
This marks a 0.5% increase from last year, and an increase of more than 5% since the first year of testing.
The department also released the scores for the Academic Performance Index, which is a measure of individual school quality. Those scores went down.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said the drop could be explained by years of school funding cuts and by complications in California's transition to the new "Common Core" standards.
"When you consider the devastating cuts of the previous four to five years, and the shift away from the old standards and the old testing to the new Common Core standards, I think those are the two biggest explanations," Torlakson said.
Additionally the federal government said the number of underperforming schools in California has increased. But Torlakson said the federal assessment is the result of unrealistic standards set by the No Child Left Behind program.
