Archive for June, 2011
A Big Fat “F” for California When it Comes to Improving Latino Student Achievement
Today’s report from the National Center for Education Statistics shows achievement is rising for Latino students nationally but has barely budged in California. At a national level, particularly in fourth-grade reading, the gap between whites and Latinos has narrowed by 10 points since 2000 — about a full year’s worth of learning. However, huge gaps remain.
Nationally, over the past two decades, the Latino student population in our schools has increased by 138 percent, to more than 11 million students. Over the past two decades, the Latino student population in California has increased by approximately 64 percent, with almost 3.2 million Latino students currently enrolled in the state’s schools. Not only is this a large chunk of the nation’s Latino students, but by itself, the Latino student population of California is larger than the individual student populations of every state in the Union except Texas. This year, for the first time, CA’s Latino students are a majority of the state’s student population.
That’s why the size and scale of the achievement gaps for Latino students and minimal gains in closing these gaps are so scary.
In fourth-grade reading and math and eighth-grade math, Latino students in California scored below the national average, while white students did not score measurably different from the national average.
On the fourth-grade reading assessment, California made gains of a mere 5 points among Latinos from 2003-2009, while other states, including Florida, Hawaii, and Maryland made at least two times the gains of California’s Latino students (10 points, or an additional years’-worth of learning).
In eighth-grade math, Latino students in California improved by 6 points from 2003 to 2009. While Latino students in 22 states and DC improved, in Arkansas, Delaware, and D.C., the gains were 20 points or more, or about an additional two years’-worth of learning.
Below is a chart showing our current gaps:
|
Latino |
White |
Latino-White Gap |
||
| 4th Grade | Math 2003 |
216 |
243 |
27 |
| Math 2009 |
219 |
247 |
28 |
|
| Reading 2003 |
191 |
224 |
33 |
|
| Reading 2009 |
196 |
227 |
31 |
|
| 8th grade | Math 2003 |
250 |
283 |
33 |
| Math 2009 |
256 |
289 |
33 |
|
| Reading 2003 |
237 |
265 |
28 |
|
| Reading 2009 |
241 |
269 |
28 |
Lackluster performance among Latino students is often attributed to language acquisition issues. But according to the U.S. Department of Education, only 16 percent of Hispanic school-aged children speak a language other than English in the home and have difficulty speaking English themselves. And nearly one-third of secondary students considered to be English-language learners actually are third-generation Americans — meaning they and their parents were born in this country and educated in our schools.
Too many Latino students, regardless of language status, enter school behind their white counterparts. But the NCES data show that when we concentrate on improving instruction and raising expectations, Latino achievement rises.
Of course, California’s education leaders are far better at making excuses and pointing fingers at our Latino communities in California than they are in improving Latino student performance. Currently, our leaders don’t have the passion, vision or plan for closing Latino achievement gaps or for that matter any achievement or opportunity gap for our communities of color. We all know that the most important factor in closing gaps is teacher quality but unlike other state leaders, our leaders have shown no desire to make the changes necessary to ensure that our most effective teachers are teaching our highest need students. They’re too busy cozying up with lobbyists in Sacramento representing adult interests and blaming “testing” because of the troubling gaps and performance issues it reveals. It’s time for that to end. But the only way for it to end is for communities to hold their elected leaders accountable for the current miserable performance of our education system for Latino students.
More than Just Seniority – Tools For Community Action
Last week, we added an important set of tools to our website to empower communities to act on behalf of their children. We know that high poverty schools with large percentages of students of color are more likely to suffer the impact of teacher layoffs. With the ongoing budget talks continuing to drag on and a ten billion dollar hole in the state budget, it is possible that education could see even more cuts. We hope that communities will use the tools on our website to identify the schools most likely to experience layoffs and use the existing flexibility in the law to protect their most vulnerable schools and students. Sometimes it takes a lawsuit like the Reed case in Los Angeles Unified and sometimes, it just takes simple courage, like that shown by Superintendent Jonathon Raymond and the Sacramento City school board, to protect the schools and students most in need of stability in difficult times.
