By George Manthey

Reflecting on a presentation by Jeannie Oakes at the California Department of Education’s Achievement Gap Summit in November, I continue to get sick to my stomach. Although this issue’s theme is “Leading effective schools,” I want to write about some ineffective ones — some approximately 200 California high schools where students are not provided with the same level of opportunities for excellence as the students at the 900 other comprehensive high schools in our state.

There are 107 comprehensive high schools in California that are overwhelmingly attended by African American students. In fact, these 107 schools serve approximately half of the African American high school students in California. Here are two facts about these schools related to educational opportunity:

• 47 percent of these schools are overcrowded (compared to 13 percent of the other comprehensive high schools in California).

• 24 percent of these schools have a severe shortage of qualified teachers (compared to 9 percent). (All data from the 2007 Educational Opportunity Reports prepared by UCLA/IDEA and UC/ACCORD, available at www.EdOpp.org.)

Similar conditions for Spanish-speaking English learners

There is another set of comprehensive high schools that can be identified as having a high concentration of Spanish-speaking English learners. These 90 schools have 33 percent or more English learners and more than 50 percent of the English learners speak Spanish as a first language. Here are the same two sets of facts about these 90 high schools:

• 30 percent of these high schools are severely overcrowded (as compared to 15 percent of the other comprehensive high schools in California).

• 24 percent of these schools also have severe shortages of qualified teachers (compared to 9 percent of the other schools).

There are many more facts about these schools in the Educational Opportunity Reports, but let’s concentrate on just the fact that both sets of these schools are severely overcrowded and have a severe shortage of qualified teachers. An airport can provide a useful analogy. Have you been in an overcrowded airport lately? What does that do to your psyche and sense of well-being? How likely is it that you would get on an airplane if you knew that the chances of it having an under-qualified crew were almost three times as great as the other passengers at the airport?

Not surprisingly, the outcomes at these schools (as measured by dropout rates, the California High School Exit Exam and the California Standards Tests) mirror these conditions.

Let’s expand on this a little more. If you are African American, there is a one in two chance that you will attend one of 107 high schools — 50 percent of which are not just overcrowded, but severely overcrowded. If you are a Latino student it is three times as likely that you will attend a high school with a severe shortage of qualified teachers as it is for the other students in the state.

Privileged students don’t like those odds

Every high school in California (including these 197) produces students who perform at the highest levels. Every ethnic group includes students who perform at both the highest and lowest levels. But the fact is there are almost no white or no Asian students at these 197 schools. Whites and Asians don’t like the odds at these schools and are privileged enough to avoid them.

Even in a time when a $10 billion budget deficit is forecast, we could ensure that these schools are not overcrowded and we could ensure that they have highly qualified teachers in every classroom. It’s something we could stop studying — we know the results already — and actually fix. If primarily white or Asian students attended these schools, then these issues would have been fixed. In fact, they already have been. If you look at the list of schools that are primarily white or Asian, you see a very different set of facts. There really is no other choice but to agree with State Superintendent Jack O’Connell when he reminds us that we can’t talk about an achievement gap without taking about issues of race.

It is possible to ensure that these 197 schools are not overcrowded and have qualified teachers. If we did, what would it do to the chances that they would be included in a list of effective schools? What in hell, and I mean that in the most literal and demonic sense of the word, is right with us if we leave them, as is?

George Manthey is assistant executive director of ACSA’s Educational Services department.