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Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Below the curve-Reports paint sobering picture for African American students
Our Weekly - November 30, 2007
By Cynthia E. Griffin
Two recently released education reports do not paint a very positive picture for the prospects of African American children attending public school in California.
The California Educational Opportunity Report 2007 produced by the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education and Access, (IDEA) in conjunction with UC/ACCORD (All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity) concluded that the state’s African American students have limited access to the resources and opportunities they need to graduate from high school ready to succeed in higher education and careers and for significant participation in public life.
This is an underlying issue in the persistent “achievement gap” seen between students of African descent and their Asian and Caucasian counterparts, and the report said a two-pronged strategy is required to closed this deficit.
That strategy requires improving the state’s educational infrastructure overall, and at the same time demands that resources and support be offered to students concentrated in the proportion of high schools that lack essential educational resources and that also enroll large numbers of African American students.
Among other findings in the Opportunities report are that while some African American high school student in the state perform at the highest academic level, as a group these students score below their White and Asian counterparts on achievement tests, and complete fewer college prep courses. Additionally fewer African Americans graduate high school and fewer move on to colleges and universities.
The 2007 independent evaluation of the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) by the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRo) has found the requirement that seniors pass this exam is further exacerbating the problems African American students face.
The HumRRO report found, in particular, that student in demographic groups with low pass rates of the CAHSEE (minorities, economically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities) who attend schools with a high proportion of similar students, continue to pass the test at lower rates.
In addition, the report found that graduation rate for the class of 2006 (the first year students were required to pass the test to obtain a diploma) declined about four percent, and dropout rates increased most markedly in Grade 12.
On top of these alarming stats, HumRRO noted that there is a severe lack of information about the fate of 60 percent of the more than 30,000 students who failed to pass the exit exam by the time they graduated from high school in 2006. Based on past statistics, there are probably a high number of African American students in this population.
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