Despite state and federal budget woes, schools must continue the important job of educating the students of California. And one of the biggest issues facing educators is finding ways to close the achievement gap between Latino and African American students and their Caucasian and Asian peers.
This is especially important in California, which educates more minority students than any other state. Adding to that challenge, California has vastly more students who speak a language other than English when they go home (44 percent). The next closest state, Texas, has 33 percent. In fact, California has more than one-third of the total number of English learners in the nation.
California is trying to close the achievement gap while having world-class state standards, but per-pupil funding ranks 47th in the nation. That’s before the expected hammer falls, with current-year and upcoming fiscal-year budget cuts.
ACSA’s Equity, Achievement and Diversity for Success Committee is offering potential solutions on this issue. The EADS Committee recently put out a call for schools to provide examples of how they have had success in closing the achievement gap. The committee is not officially endorsing programs, but wants to share concrete examples of what some schools are doing in case ACSA members want to emulate their efforts.
San Leandro Unified School District has shown success in this area. The district has a diverse student population at 40 percent Latino, 17 percent African American, 15 percent Asian, 13 percent Caucasian and 9 percent Filipino. It also has 26 percent English learners, with at least 43 different languages and dialects spoken at students’ homes. In addition, 50 percent of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch.
San Leandro is making gains in closing the achievement gap. Both Latinos and African Americans have shown more improvement on the Academic Performance Index and California Standards Tests than Caucasians. Both groups have also shown better improvement in scores on the California High School Exit Exam.
For example, in comparing API growth from 2003-04 to that of 2007-08, African Americans and Latinos showed a 6.3 percent or better growth in API, while Caucasians posted a 5.9 percent gain and Asians a 3.6 percent gain. In comparing pass rates of March 2006 for the English language arts portion of the CAHSEE to those of February 2008, while all 10th-grade students showed an overall improvement rate of 4 percent, African Americans showed 8 percent improvement and Latinos 10 percent improvement.
A good deal of credit for these results goes to Superintendent Christine Lim. She was hired in 2003 specifically to bring her equity lens and expertise to a district that had recently been charged with a discrimination lawsuit. Even before her official start date, she began formulating a plan to do this important work.
“All obligations through the lawsuit were fulfilled by the end of the 2007-08 school year, but this critical work must continue and requires courageous leadership,” Lim said. “We must remain steadfast and vigilant in our charge to provide access to a high quality education for all children, no matter how long it takes.”
San Leandro educators are guided by a “walking to the edge” philosophy, Lim said.
“Walking to the edge is our metaphor for doing this work that is at times both inspiring and terrifying,” she said. “Having the courageous conversations about race that must take place makes people uncomfortable – even frightened – as all too often, individuals might want to preserve harmony at all costs. To be nice and not risk offending someone on his or her often unconscious racist behavior is not acceptable. Our African American and Latino students – and our society as a whole – pay the price. We must not only walk to the edge. Sometimes we must take the leap.”
To guide the hands-on efforts at closing the achievement gap, San Leandro uses a team concept. There is a district-wide equity team, which comprises equity teams from each of its school sites, led by the site principal. They come together for professional development and equity training, and to share the successes and challenges with one another in order to strengthen the work system-wide.
There is the understanding that each school community has its own needs and challenges, and may be in different places in terms of the work. So equity leaders facilitate conversation and growth at each school site, and provide assistance and training in everything from coaching to providing culturally relevant strategies to improve classroom performance.
ACSA provides classroom walk-through programs designed to focus and amplify site leaders’ abilities to assess learning and teaching to the state standards in classroom visits. In a sense, San Leandro uses a similar concept, but for equity with equity walk-throughs. An equity leader will observe classroom practices with a list of specific “can’t continues” and “must do’s.” Each particular practice has a place on the list to show evidence of the practice. Lim cites the district’s work with Glenn Singleton, executive director of the Pacific Educational Group, for helping the district in this.
“When we visit classrooms we use an equity lens in observing what is happening inside the classroom,” Lim said. “Are all students engaged in learning? Are culturally relevant teaching strategies used in the classroom? Is the teacher equitable in the way he or she calls on students? Is the learning environment warm and inviting and reflective of the diverse cultures represented by the students? Do the books reflect diversity? Are all students held to a high expectation of academic excellence? These are just a few of the things we look for.”
Another key part of the multi-year effort in San Leandro has been in building safety nets for students.
“One of the greatest safety nets has been in the way we have revamped the uniform student discipline and expulsion policy,” Lim said. “We have seen a dramatic drop in our total suspensions and expulsions, specifically in terms of students of color. If a child is not in school, he or she is not learning.”
Other safety nets include hiring more teachers and administrators of color, and engaging and strengthening parental involvement, specifically with underrepresented parents. In addition, encouraging a student voice and celebrating academic achievement also provides important safety nets. San Leandro’s basic tenet is that students must feel valued and appreciated, and held to high academic standards in order to succeed.
San Leandro also realizes it takes a village in this effort, so the district has a strong equity outreach to parents and the greater community.
The district began by having each principal invite parents of color to take part in Partnerships for Academically Successful Students, providing trainings and opportunities to have discussions and get involved at the district level. Through this work, schools began to see more involvement, and now almost all district schools have very active parent equity groups, and are seeing parents of color assuming more leadership roles in the traditional parent groups, such as PTA.
In addition, the district high school has a very robust and dedicated Parent Equity Committee that meets with the principal at a local coffee shop once or twice a month and recently hosted a very successful educational summit for equity that was open to parents and students district-wide. The community is also invited to partner with the district in many ways, and community input is sought on many issues. In addition, Superintendent Lim serves on the board of the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce, as well as a Health is Not Just Health Care Collaborative, spearheaded by Alameda County Supervisor Alice Lai-Bitker. The collaborative looks at health care issues, including the racial health disparities and how to build resiliency about youth and families.
For more information on San Leandro’s equity work, please contact Communications Outreach Specialist Robin Michel at (510) 667-6208, or rmichel@sanleandro.k12.ca.us.
If you have a successful practice to share for closing the achievement gap, please contact Margarita Magliocco, staff executive to the Equity, Achievement and Diversity for Success Committee, via e-mail at mmagliocco@acsa.org, or call (800) 608-ACSA.