by Billy Blackwell II
Mission High School, built in 1926, was declared a landmark in June 7, 2006
Even as standardized test scores across the board rise, Latinos, along with African- North Americans, students have been consistently underperforming white and Asian students in reading and math tests. This gap in achievement, which has been going on for decades, is now the focus of statewide and national concern.
“In a state with 6.3 million public school students — nearly half of whom are Hispanic, 25 percent still learning the English language and 40 percent struggling against poverty — closing the achievement gap is essential to a secure future,” California’s State Superintendent of Public Education Jack O’Connell said.
A new report tackles the issue and O’Connell invited San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Carlos García as one of the educators, community and business leaders to speak to an estimated 4,000 attendees at a two-day summit this week to discuss the issue.
According to O’Connell, his is a complicated and controversial issue that won’t be solved overnight or even during his administration.
Jennie Oakes
The achievement gap has often been discussed as a culture issue that lays the problem back at the feet of the under-performing communities, which caused researchers at UCLA to respond.
“So many people seem to respond to this discussion as if there was a cultural problem, as if there much be something wrong with African-North American and Latino communities that makes them score lower on standardized tests,” said Professor Jeannie Oakes, Director of UC ACCORD and Co-Director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access, co-author of the 2007 Education Opportunity Report. “California’s white students also score far lower than white students throughout the state, although nobody seems to be asking why white students are scoring so low.”
The problem started almost 30 years ago when Californians voted in Proposition 13, which capped property taxes, according to Professor John Rogers, co-director of UCLA’s IDEA and co-author of the report.
Carlos García
“California is spending less money on its students that most states and the results are that all students are falling behind,” Rogers said.
The 2007 Education Opportunity Report examined unequal educational achievement in light of the conditions in public schools. Supplemental reports show that throughout the public school system Latino and African-North American communities suffer disproportionately from lack of school funding, leaving them with more overcrowded classrooms, fewer qualified teachers and not enough college preparatory courses.
“The achievement gap is mirrored by an opportunity gap for Latinos and African Americans,” researchers said. When they looked at the data throughout the state, drops in test scores by Latino were mirrored lack of basic fundamental educational resources. Low-test scores in Latino and African American communities happened in areas in school where they received fewer resources, according to the reseachers.
- 35 percent of Latino students attend overcrowded high schools, which is almost twice as many as white high school student.
- Latino students are two and a half times more likely than white students and three times more likely than Asian students to experience serious shortages of qualified teachers.
- 65 percent of Latino students attend high schools with too few college preparatory courses for all students to enroll in college preparatory curriculum.
“These research results demonstrate that closing the opportunities gap faced by African American and Latino students will have tremendous benefits for the state as a whole,” Oakes said.
The two-day Achievement Gap Summit in Sacramento this week marks the first time a comprehensive statewide effort has been made to focus on why the gap exists and develop sustainable, systematic solutions for closing it.
The Summit is part of a yearlong effort by O’Connell, in partnership with the California Department of Education, educators, researchers and community leaders through the state and nation to focus on this controversial issue.
SFUSD Superintendent García spoke on a panel of Latino and African-North American school superintendents to discuss this controversial issue. He is a member of O’Connell’s P-16 council, a statewide assembly of education, business, and community leaders charged with developing strategies to better coordinate, integrate, and improve education for preschool through college students.
García told El Reportero that several programs have been put in place to provide additional resources to underperforming schools in his district. And even though performance among SFUSD students improved overall, the achievement gap keeps widening. For example, in 2001, 15 percent of Latino students in SFUSD were profi cient and 33 percent of all students were profi cient in the district overall. In 2007, 28 percent of Latino students were profi cient and 49 percent of all students were profi cient, García said.
