Test scores are up, but minority students still lag
By KEVIN HERRERA
November 3, 2005
LOS ANGELES — Students across the state are making significant gains on standardized tests, but African-American, Latino and poor children are still lagging far behind their white and Asian counterparts, according to data released last week by the state superintendent of public schools.
Despite reform efforts and a strong standards-based curriculum that have lifted scores among all groups by an average of 20 points over last year — 17.1 percent for the socioeconomically disadvantaged, 15.9 for Latinos, 11.2 percent for African-Americans — there is still a persistent achievement gap that threatens to grow larger, educators say.
The problem has become so alarming locally that the Los Angeles school board has drafted an action plan to address the issue, which includes incorporating culturally relevant curriculum along with greater access to college preparatory classes for minority students.
While educators agree that more parental involvement coupled with smaller class sizes and qualified teachers are the keys to success, there is by no means a consensus on what formula of reform works. Some would like to see more charter schools and the decentralization of the LAUSD.
Others support rigorous testing and penalties for poor performance such as in the No Child Left Behind Act, while there are those who like the idea of creating small learning communities that break up larger campuses to create more focused academies.
The one thing that they all agree on is the achievement gap is a serious problem and one that cannot be solved with one method alone, nor by one person alone. It is going to take the determination of every student, every teacher and every parent to close the gap.
“I don’t think it will take anything revolutionary,” said Randy Ross, Ph.D., the director of education policy for the Los Angeles school board. “It all goes back to a fine gentleman and education advocate, Ron Edmonds, who in 1979 said we all know what we need to know in order to educate these children. What we lack is the will to do it. ... It’s a tough battle and one of the biggest challenges is keeping people’s sights set on the prize, motivating the troops.”
The first component to raising student achievement is the parents, educators said. More parents not only need to be involved at home, but at schools as well.
“If parents don’t feel comfortable and feel that their voice matters, you have a real breakdown,” said Steve Barr, founder of Green Dot charter schools, which require parents to volunteer 35 hours per year, which can include chaperoning a school dance, or for those who work multiple jobs, reading to their children a few hours every weekend.
Studies show that children who come from single-parent homes where the parent is not often available perform at lower rates than children from two-parent homes, where at least one parent is able to help with school work. Black and Latino students also move more frequently than other students, which hurts the continuity of instruction.
Once parents and school district officials start communicating better, educators say more focus can be placed on the classroom, making sure money is spent on students and not wasted on bureaucracy.
It has long been argued that students in predominantly minority neighborhoods attend schools that are in need of repair, lack sufficient resources such as textbooks and have a disproportionate number of new teachers who are not qualified. In a survey conducted by UCLA earlier this year, researchers found that schools with large populations of African-Americans and Latinos were seven times more likely to experience deficiencies, such as teachers who are not fully credentialed.
“Some of those problems have been addressed in recent months due to settlements in court cases [such as the Williams case], especially when it comes to textbooks, but many shortages still exist,” said John Rogers, associate director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access, or IDEA, which works to empower parent groups and students to fight inequality in their schools. “These shortages contribute to lower test scores.”
Quite simply, Rogers and others said the state needs to spend more money on education. Currently the state ranks 44th in per-pupil spending, about $1,000 less than the national average, according to the California Teachers Association. In the 1960s, California was ranked sixth, the CTA said.
“What the LAUSD is doing is presenting the illusion of reform,” said Barr, who is trying to take control over Jefferson High School. “Ninety-five percent of the tax dollars we get is spent in the classroom. With the school district, 30 percent is shaved off the top for administrative costs. … The money should be spent at the school site with decisions made by those who work at the school site. We’ve got to get teachers involved and make them feel like they have a stake in things.”
Some teachers feel they are not being allowed to make an impact on budget issues or, more importantly, on their students because of a rigid, standards-based curriculum that was designed with little flexibility.
“I don’t even feel like I’m teaching anymore,” said Mignon Jackson, an eighth grade history teacher at Paul Revere Middle School. “All we do now is read lesson plans from a book instead of being creative to form your own lesson plans to reach students. How are students supposed to be interested and really connect when they are listening to the same lessons over and over. … There are no longer innovative ideas. Children are not being taught how to think. They are being taught to pass the test. What are they going to do when they get to be 18? Where are they going to be?”
Jackson said she would like to have more freedom in developing lesson plans. She would also like to see more money to hire a teacher’s aides as well as fund universal preschool so that students start off on equal footing. She would also like to see the district fund more field trips for students so that they can experience a world outside of their neighborhood.
“We can’t just dump money,” she said. “We have to put it where it’s needed. … We need to have the time and the flexibility to start forming bonds with our students again and not feel as if we are just some machines.”
Despite the criticism, those interviewed said they feel schools are heading in the right direction, much of which is the result of a renewed interest in public education, a necessity as the economy shifts from a manufacturing-based to a service-based economy.
“Our structured program is working, that is to say test scores are improving, but we don’t have enough qualified teachers trained nor have we created enough direct revenue to local school sites to empower the schools to do things in this structured program,” said school board member David Tokofsky, who has been fighting for universal preschool as well as smaller classes in middle school and junior high.
“I would say that if an A is excellent and a B is very good and a C is satisfactory, then we are heading into the B-minus category as an organization,” Tokofsky said of the LAUSD. “This is the most frustrating of times because you have rising expectations and it is in periods of rising expectations in history when the most tumult occurs. Now that we have this budding revolution going on, some academic change, people are feeling in between their past and their hopes, which can be very frustrating, but it’s a good place to be.”
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