Calif. students falling behind

UCLA Today - November 20, 2007

By Cynthia Lee

California is lagging behind most of the other states in providing fundamental learning conditions, and that has led to poor student outcomes, according to a UCLA report released Nov. 8.

The report, issued by UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (IDEA) and the UC All-Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity (UC ACCORD), finds that systematic inadequacies and inequalities in the public education system are leaving California students from all backgrounds unable to compete with their counterparts in most other parts of the country. This wide achievement gap cannot be explained by poverty, race, ethnicity or the large number of students learning English as a second language, said Jeannie Oakes, who is director of UC ACCORD and co- director of UCLA's IDEA, along with John Rogers, assistant professor of education at UCLA.

For example, said Rogers during a press conference, "California's white students perform far poorer than white students in almost any other state. Our eighth graders score 48th of all states in reading scores, compared to other white students. Our non-poor students in California score near the bottom of the NAEP (the National Assessment of Educational Progress) in both reading and math. So there are some fundamental conditions across California schools that need to be addressed, in addition to the inequalities within California schools."

Oakes, a UCLA professor of education, said that conditions such as severely overcrowded schools, large student-to-teacher ratios, a shortage of qualified teachers and an insufficient Read an opinion piece by John Rogers and Jeannie Oakes in the Los Angeles Times. number of college prep classes are "primarily the result of insufficient spending on the education infrastructure. Over the last 30 years, we've really let our infrastructure decline, partly as a result of our nearly ending our state's ability to use property taxes to fund public schools." The problem, she said, is basically "an investment challenge that California needs to face."

In addition to the gap between learning opportunities in California and other states, researchers completed supplemental studies to examine the gap in learning opportunities between different California public schools and between the state's racial groups. They found that educational obstacles are greatest for California's African-American and Latino students, who are frequently enrolled in schools with fewer qualified teachers and educational resources than their peers.

For example, 38% of African-American students attend overcrowded high schools, more than twice the population of white students attending these schools. Latino high school students are two-and-one-half times more likely than white students and more than three times more likely than Asian students—to experience serious shortages of qualified teachers.

Last August, California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell called for a statewide focus on understanding and eliminating this racial inequality gap. Oakes was invited to present the results in these reports at a summit O'Connell had called to address the achievement gap.

To view reports, visit www.idea.gseis.ucla.edu.

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