November 29, 2006

Rich School, Poor School

Quite frankly, you would have to have grown up in a cave in America not to realize that there are definite academic advantages provided to affluent schools. My first three years of grade school were spent at Santa Barbara Elementary in the Los Angeles School District.

It was predominantly black, situated deep in the heart of south central. Scholastically, I was so far ahead of my peers that I was designated gifted and was skipped a grade. Entering fifth grade, like George and Weezie, my family moved on up to the affluent and predominantly white community of South Pasadena.

I remember being stunned at how parents at my new Monterey Hills Elementary purchased a brand new refrigerator for the faculty room. The teachers, although grateful, were not shocked as I was. Myself, having just moved from a neighborhood where most families didn't have a new refrigerator in their own home, much less were they going to buy one for their child's teachers.

A small example. However, to this day, it speaks volumes to me about the disparity between education systems. Needless to say, at Monterey Hills Elementary, I was no longer considered gifted. In fact, I was behind my peers in academic skills. Field trips were frequent, with intense parental involvement, and in depth reports were expected at their conclusion. Books were always new, desks in excellent condition, teachers were highly experienced.

The difference was so profound that I and the five other black children at Monterey Hills Elementary often joked about what the conditions were like at our former LAUSD schools compared to our environment in South Pasadena. Years later, the impact is just as profound. Many of my relatives who grew up in LAUSD schools were not adequately prepared for college. Their parents, my aunts and uncles, all very good, hard-working and well-meaning people, simply did not know what to do to prepare their children. And the impoverished schools my cousins attended did nothing to help.

At South Pasadena High School, counselors were knowledgeable and abundant. The school district at the time was ranked in the top ten in the country by the Iowa Standardized Testing. It was not a matter of "if" you were going to college, but "on which coast."

I share my background to give some understanding to the viewer, how I as a reporter, feel compelled to cover this issue of achievement gaps in our schools. It is a gap intrinsically falling on racial and class lines. The poorer schools tend to have heavier populations of black and Latino students. In my researching this story, I found there were many factors contributing to this gap and just as many solutions needed to close it.

There is much focus on parental involvement. Yes, there is a tremendous lack of parental involvement in the lower income and lower-achieving schools. Yes, many of the parents can and need to do more. John Mockler, the education policy maker interviewed in this story reminds us that this is not, however, about the parents. This is about the children. He says that no matter what reason befalls the parents for not being as involved as hoped, the children still need to be given the attention -- and the school district is the most logical place from which that attention should come.

Mockler though says the funding gap between schools of high and low affluence cannot be ignored. It is probably the most essential piece of the solution. Just this month, the Education Trust West analyzed the salary differences between three Sacramento Unified School District elementary schools.

There was nearly a $450,000 cumulative difference in the salaries paid at the highest performing school and the school with the lowest test scores.

The high scoring school is predominantly white and Asian and is located in Tony Land Park. The low scoring school is predominantly Latino, Southeast Asian and black and is located in the grittiest section of South Sacramento.

During the past five years, the high scoring school never had more than three teachers completing their first year of teaching. Some years, the low scoring school had as many as 14 first-year teachers. Mockler says highly experienced teachers must be given incentive not to view success as reaching a coveted position at a school packed with money, other highly experienced teachers and classrooms with minimal faces of color.

A new bill passed this year, SB1133, may be just that incentive. In 500 underperforming schools over the next seven years, it will spend $3 billion to reduce class size, hand select principals and improve academic instruction -- all items teachers and their unions consider a high priority for their working environment.

School districts and teachers unions must now move their experienced teachers into those 500 underperforming schools, where two factors remain unchanged -- poverty and parents, who for a myriad of reasons, will not be involved. It will not be an easy sell.

May 22, 2006

Gauging the Achievement Gap

Like most parents, I was unaware an achievement gap exists across the board.  Common sense told me students in lower income neighborhoods probably did not perform as well as schools in more affluent communities.  But, if incomes and education levels in the homes are the same, I incorrectly assumed black and Latino children would achieve at the same levels as white and Asian students.

Our visit to B. Gale Wilson school in Fairfield was an eye-opener. Two black teachers at the school asked their principal to call a meeting of parents of black children to address the problems of underperformance.  When we got there, there was a room full of well- heeled  black parents frustrated about the gap in achievement between their children and white and Asian children.

It prompted me to ask if it's going on at Wilson school, could it be happening at other schools, including my own son's campus.

The answer is yes. In his  honors English and history courses he is one of two or three black students and often the only black male.  This is in a school that is 17 percent  black.

Former administrators say part of the problem is families. The black parents are not as assertive as they should be when it comes to placing their children in honors classes and giving their children academic support such as private tutoring.  However, these educators also say the school system itself has lower expectations of black and Latino students; teachers and counselors failing to push black and Latino students into higher performing classes.

Measurements from grades to standardized test scores to the number of graduates who have fulfilled UC/CSUS admission requirements show the gap exists at all levels.

In the months to come we at New10 will exam this unfortunate phenomenon more closely, and with any success at all, will provide parents with some answers.