Black teachers: How to recruit them and make them stay
Lessons in higher education: What California can learn
Keeping California public university options open
Superintendents: Well-paid and walking away
The debt to degree connection
College in prison: How earning a degree can lead to a new life
Latino youth in California make up a majority of the student population but face daunting obstacles in schools, including less access to quality preschools, honors classes and college counseling than their white peers, according to a report by Education Trust-West released this week.
The study, “The Majority Report: Supporting the Success of Latino Students in California,” found that in every California county, a majority of Latino students were not proficient in math or English language arts, based on Smarter Balanced test scores. By comparison, a majority of white students scored proficient in English language arts in more than 40 counties, and in math in more than 20 counties.
“Given the historical discrimination faced by Latinos and the sheer number of Latinos in California, we have a moral and economic imperative to close these opportunity gaps,” said Ryan Smith, executive director of the Education Trust-West, a nonprofit that studies equity issues in education.
The report is based on the results of the 2017 Smarter Balanced math and English language arts tests, given to California public school students in 3rd through 8th grade and 11th grade. Scores are divided into four categories: exceeded standards, met standards, nearly met standards and did not meet standards. “Proficient” means exceeding or meeting standards.
Latino children make up 54 percent of the K-12 public school population in California, yet have lower graduation rates, lower test scores and more segregated schools than their white classmates in most parts of California, according to the report. Some of the counties with the largest achievement gaps are clustered in the Bay Area and around Los Angeles.
San Francisco had the largest test score gap between Latino and white students in the state, with a 46-point difference between the percentage of Latino and white students who met or exceeded both the state math and English language arts standards in 2017.
Marin County had the second-highest gap, at 44 percentage points. San Rafael High School, for example, which is majority Latino, has one college counselor for every 475 students while Sir Francis Drake High, a majority white school in San Anselmo, has a counselor for every 285 students. White-majority schools in Marin also offer more honors and advanced placement tests than San Rafael High, which is 65 percent Latino, according to the schools’ web sites.
Marin County Superintendent Mary Jane Burke said her office has had a “laser focus” on the inequities for the past decade, but funding can be a challenge. Some districts have more funding than others because voters pass school bonds or special taxes, or they use the basic aid funding formula based on local property taxes instead of the state-sponsored Local Control Funding Formula. A quarter-cent sales tax, Measure A, which would have supported preschool and daycare for low-income families, failed last year.
“We have an achievement gap in Marin, and we have to own that,” Burke said. “Some kids need more than others to get the same opportunities, and it’s incumbent upon all of us to make sure all kids get the same opportunities to succeed.”
The Marin County Office of Education has trained some elementary and middle school teachers to better understand diversity issues and cultural differences, and worked with local nonprofits and the Marin Community Foundation to organize college visits, financial aid help and other programs intended to help Latino and low-income students.
The Education Trust-West report singled out several districts for their extraordinary results with their Latino student populations. Covina Valley Unified, in Los Angeles County, had a 98 percent graduation rate among Latino students in 2016, compared to 81 percent of Latino students statewide.
In Dinuba Unified in Tulare County, 58 percent of Latino students who graduated in 2016 completed the A-G requirements for admission to the University of California and California State University, compared to 37 percent of Latino students statewide.
There was good news at the college level, as well. San Diego State University made on-campus housing more affordable for low-income students of all ethnicities, which helped boost the Latino graduation rate from 31 percent in 2002 to 60 percent in 2013.
“It’s not all bad news. There’s a lot to celebrate, too,” Smith said, noting that the Latino dropout rate in 2015 was 13 percent, half what it was in 1994, and the number of Latinos earning associate’s and bachelor’s degrees has more than doubled in the last decade.
Legislation that would remove one of the last tests teachers are required to take to earn a credential in California passed the Senate Education Committee.
Part-time instructors, many who work for decades off the tenure track and at a lower pay rate, have been called “apprentices to nowhere.”
A bill to mandate use of the method will not advance in the Legislature this year in the face of teachers union opposition.
Nearly a third of the 930 districts statewide that reported data had a higher rate of chronic absenteeism in 2022-23 than the year before.
Comments (3)
Comments Policy
We welcome your comments. All comments are moderated for civility, relevance and other considerations. Click here for EdSource's Comments Policy.
Dino Tomelden 6 years ago6 years ago
Isn't it well past time to ask if this issue is endemic to funding or endemic to culture? My child goes to a California Distinguished High School. There is no lack of funding because the community steps in when asked. Yet the achievement gap persists. The article link below, though old, tries to explain what accounts for that gap. And written by a student journalist no less. Yes it … Read More
Isn’t it well past time to ask if this issue is endemic to funding or endemic to culture? My child goes to a California Distinguished High School. There is no lack of funding because the community steps in when asked. Yet the achievement gap persists. The article link below, though old, tries to explain what accounts for that gap. And written by a student journalist no less. Yes it is an uncomfortable discussion, tinged with fear that presentation of facts would be viewed as hostile. So, no one wants to have this discussion and 15 years on it is as bad as it has always been, even back to my time in school. Read the article and dissuade me from believing it to be true.
http://hispanicpundit.com/2005/10/21/why-dont-latinos-do-as-well-in-school/
Natalie F 6 years ago6 years ago
If we are serious about closing the achievement gap, why don’t we go to year-round schools and extended day programs, especially in the districts with large population of socio-economically disadvantaged students? Because, frankly, it’s not about the race, it’s about poverty and lack of support at home. Schools should stop giving “parental homework” which parents in difficult circumstances are unable or unwilling to do and spend more time with these students.
Don 6 years ago6 years ago
The idea being promulgated here by Mary Jane Burke that her district’s achievement gap is the result of poor funding compared to other districts with more “voter passed bonds and special taxes” is given the lie when the adjacent district to its south, San Francisco Unified, has an even bigger achievement gap and more voter-passed support. Per pupil spending does not correlate well with increasing outcomes for historically underperforming groups. This is a canard long in the tooth.