report january 2003 narrowing the achievement gap · narrowing the achievement gap january 2003...

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valuations of public education in theUnited States are most often basedon how students perform on stan-

dardized, paper-and-pencil tests. The vast ma-jority of these subject-matter tests are uniqueto a given state, so comparisons of resultsamong states are virtually impossible. InCalifornia, the standardized tests have changedoften enough that it is difficult to compare re-sults within the state over an extended periodof time. Despite these challenges, the vast as-sortment of tests administered in Californiaand other states over the last 50 years are fairlyconsistent in at least one respect—they showthat certain groups of children repeatedly score farbelow children in other groups.

This report illustrates the extent of theachievement gap in California and nationallyusing common indicators of educational achieve-ment, including test scores. It then summarizesresearch and theories on the possible reasons fordifferences in student performance and solutionsto address these differences. In particular, this report describes California’s various policy responses to this tenacious problem and the implications these strategies have in light of theexisting research and practice. Such an examina-tion is particularly important in the context of

California’s current and projected fiscal crisis—including a state budget deficit projected at $35billion through 2004—so that spending cuts donot further exacerbate the achievement gap.

After decades of reforms,theachievement gap persistsThe student achievement gap in the UnitedStates has a long and well-documented history.In 1966 a federally funded report, Equality ofEducational Opportunity, brought to the generalpublic’s attention the vast differences in aca-demic performance between “rich, white stu-dents and the average poor, minority student.”This highly publicized and often stridently criticized, two-volume publication—commonlyknown as the “Coleman Report”—found thatfamily socioeconomic status (SES) was the sin-gle best predictor of a child’s schooling successand that the effects of school were not sufficientto offset the effects of SES. It came in the wakeof President Lyndon Johnson’s sweeping “GreatSociety” legislation, which included such pro-grams as Head Start and Title I.

The Coleman Report findings deflated theGreat Society efforts—many of which wereaimed at schools—because it was pessimistic

ClarifyingComplex

EducationIssues

January 2003

R E P O R T A review of research, policies, and issues

Narrowing the Achievement Gap

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Inside This Report

NAEP Results Show Achievement Gaps Nationally . . . . . . 3

California StandardsTests Show DramaticGaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

The Belief That SchoolsShould Narrow the GapPropels Reform . . . . . . 10

California Policies HaveVaried Rationales andResults. . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Research and ExperienceCan Point to NewDirections . . . . . . . . . . 22

EdSource thanks the Stupski FamilyFoundation for providingsignificant support for the development of this report.

© Copyright 2003by EdSource, Inc.

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about the ability of schools to affect stu-dent achievement. It also generated a lot of activity in the research community.Researchers produced piles of journal arti-cles and institutional reports in the follow-ing decades documenting differences instudent performance, suggested causes, andproposed solutions.

According to University of California,Los Angeles, Professor Jeannie Oakes, the1970s marked a time when the federal gov-ernment invested most generously in GreatSociety programs and desegregation orderswere most strictly enforced. StanfordUniversity Professor Marshall Smith andUniversity of Wisconsin Professor JenniferO’Day, who analyzed National Assessmentof Educational Progress (NAEP) trend datafrom that period, found that the achieve-ment gap narrowed 35–50% between theearly 1970s and 1988. Among the factorsthey suggested as having contributed to the narrowing of the gap were decliningpoverty rates and higher maternal edu-cational attainment among AfricanAmericans during this period, as well asdramatic improvements in the quality ofSouthern public schools due to desegre-gation. (Smith and O’Day’s analysis alsorevealed that during the early and mid-1990s, the gap ceased to narrow.)

In 1983, a widely cited report, A NationAt Risk, warned that students in the UnitedStates were, as a whole, less skilled and lessknowledgeable than their counterparts inother industrialized nations. This launchedan unprecedented two decades of educa-tional reform aimed at “excellence” in edu-cation that de-emphasized basic skills andemphasized “higher-order” skills believednecessary to compete in a global, technology-based economy. Many warned that this racefor excellence would leave “students at risk”behind if the country did not provide ade-quate support and new strategies to helpthese children catch up with their higher-performing classmates.

By the end of the 1980s, influential reports such as the U.S. Department ofLabor’s Workforce 2000 predicted an un-settling future. The same poor childrenand children of color who were not achieving well in school would face a

global economy where low-skill jobs paidincreasingly lower wages. In response, policy-makers and the public demanded improve-ments in education aimed at narrowingthe persistent achievement gap.

In the new millenium, analyses ofdecades’ worth of student demographic and performance data abound. Many re-searchers—and indeed the federal govern-ment—are frustrated that, taken as a whole,research findings are inconclusive and haveyet to reveal “what works” to narrow theachievement gap. Nonetheless, results haveshown with some consistency that studentachievement has increased gradually overtime. Unfortunately they also show that the achievement gap, though narrowing inthe 1970s, is as prevalent today as it was reported to be when the Coleman Reportwas released in the late 1960s.

The following section of this reportprovides some examples of the extent andnature of this gap both nationally and inCalifornia. (For a comprehensive discussionof California’s student achievement indica-tors, see EdSource’s June 2002 report,California Student Achievement.)

NAEP results show a wideachievement gap across the countryDiscussions of student performance acrossthe United States are limited by the fact thatthe country does not have a national test ofwhat every student in every state knows.The closest thing to such an evaluation isthe National Assessment of EducationalProgress (NAEP). NAEP is a battery of testsin various subject areas, given periodicallysince 1969 to a nationally representativesample of 4th, 8th, and 12th graders and,since 1990, to representative state samples.(Currently 32 states participate in the staterepresentative portion of NAEP.) The testsare criterion-referenced with scores meas-ured against performance levels ranging from“below basic” through “advanced.”

The most recent results from the NAEPreading (1998), mathematics (2000), andscience (2000) assessments of 4th and 8thgraders across the United States (see Figure1) show that poor children—those eligiblefor the National School Lunch Program (a

Narrowing the Achievement Gap ● January 2003

Trish WilliamsEdSource Executive Director

2002–03 EdSource Board of DirectorsKelvin K. Lee, PresidentSuperintendent, Dry Creek JointElementary School District

Peter Schrag, Vice PresidentContributing Editor, Sacramento Bee

Lawrence O. Picus, Fiscal OfficerProfessor, Rossier School of Education,University of Southern California

Robert G. Haskell, SecretarySenior Vice President, Public Affairs, Pacific Life Insurance Company

Ray BacchettiScholar in Residence, CarnegieFoundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Pam BradyVice President for Education, California State PTA

Davis CampbellPresident, CSBAGovernance Institute

Susan J. CochranPresident, American Associationof University Women–California

Jan DomenePresident, California State PTA

Joni E. FinneyVice President, National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education

Gerald C. HaywardDirector, Policy Analysisfor California Education

Ann Nkiruka IfekwunigweNational Board Certified Teacher,Carthay Center Elementary School

Barbara InatsuguPresident, League ofWomen Voters of California

Maggie Carrillo MejiaSuperintendent, Montebello USD

John B. MocklerPresident,John Mockler & Associates

Ted OlssonManager, Corporate CommunityRelations, Western United States, IBM Corporation

Amado M. PadillaProfessor of Education,Stanford University

Krys WulffPast President, American Associationof University Women–California

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proxy for poverty)—perform significantlybelow their more advantaged classmates:■ The percent of poor students scoring

“below basic” is more than twice as high—in all subjects and for both grades—as it isfor higher-income students.

■ The percent of poor students scoring ator above the “proficient” level tends to beabout one-third that of higher-incomestudents across all subjects and bothgrade levels.

Poverty is not unique to any age group,family type, race, or ethnicity. It does, how-ever, exist in disproportionate rates amongthe very young, among families headed bysingle women, and in African American andHispanic populations. Poverty is strongly as-sociated with, but by no means determines, achild’s academic success. Although poverty ismore prevalent among certain family typesand racial/ethnic groups, the relationshipsare not absolute.

Results show strong relationships between performance and ethnicityRace/ethnicity is commonly used to reportstudent achievement data. This approachcan help determine whether the educa-tional system is serving different groups ofstudents equitably. However, reporting basedon race/ethnicity has its shortcomings.Ethnic groupings often mask differenceswithin the group that may be important,such as between Chinese and Vietnamesestudents—both identified as Asians.Further, because of the strong correlationbetween race/ethnicity and poverty, conclu-sions based solely on race/ethnic distinc-tions reflect the effects of poverty as well as race. With these caveats in mind, theNAEP results by race/ethnicity (see Figure1) show the following:■ The percent of African American and

Hispanic students in the United Statesscoring “below basic” tends to be abouttwo to three times higher—across all sub-jects and grade levels—than for white andAsian/Pacific Island students.

■ The percent of African American andHispanic students scoring at or above the“proficient” level tends to be about one fifththat of white and Asian/Pacific Island stu-dents—across all subjects and grade levels.


Data: National Center for Education Statistics EdSource 1/03

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NAEP results consistently show achievementgaps nationally

Figure 1

* For the purpose of this chart,“living in poverty” or “economically disadvantaged” is defined as being eligible for the National School Lunch Program.

Across several subjects, eighth grade results show children living in poverty* score lower

Eighth grade reading scores illustrate typical performance differences among ethnicities

The achievement gap is also evidentin California’s own test resultsCalifornia’s own statewide tests also show an alarm-ing achievement gap. The most recent results fromthe new California Standards Tests (CSTs) show thesame patterns of differential performance as theNAEP (see Figure 2):■ The percent of poor students scoring “below basic”

and “far below basic” tends to be about two timeshigher in English language arts and mathematicsacross all grades tested than for students fromhigher-income families.

■ The percent of poor students scoring at or above“proficient” tends to be about one-third that of

higher-income students in English language arts andone-half that of higher-income students in mathe-matics across all grade levels tested.

The most recent scores (March and May 2002combined) from the state’s new High School ExitExam (CAHSEE) also show a pattern of differentialachievement based on ethnicity:■ The percent of Asian and white students passing the

math section of the CAHSEE was more than twice ashigh as for African American and Hispanic students.

■ The percent of Asian and white students passingthe English language arts section of the CAHSEEwas about one-and-a-half times higher than forAfrican American and Hispanic students.

Another clear achievement gap exists inCalifornia between students who are designated asEnglish learners (ELs) and those who are not. Thisgap shows up on the California Standards Tests, theStanford-9, and the CAHSEE; and while the gap islargest on the English sections of these tests, it is sub-stantial on the mathematics sections as well.

At the elementary school level, the achievementgap between ELs and other students is comparable tothe one between poor and higher-income students. Butthe gap gets larger at the middle school level and largerstill at the high school level. Students designated asELs do not retain their designation indefinitely. Rather,they are periodically tested to determine if they can beredesignated as “fully English proficient.” ELs are thusprogressively rarer in middle and high school, andthose who remain classified EL are progressively fur-ther behind the majority of their classmates.

Some sort of gap between ELs and other students isinevitable whenever English skills are among what istested; anything otherwise would raise serious questionsabout either the test used to determine English profi-ciency or the English portions of California’s other tests.Nonetheless, given that approximately one fourth ofCalifornia’s students are ELs, the achievement level ofthis group is a central issue in California education.

Other measures of schooling success show a similar pattern of achievement for California’sstudents—based on ethnicity—to the one that exists nationwide:■ The percent of Asian and white students complet-

ing all courses required for University of Californiaand/or California State University entrance in2000–01 was about twice as high as for AfricanAmerican and Hispanic students.

■ The percent of Asian and white students scoring ator about 1000 on the year 2000 SAT for college ad-

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Results show that all California studentslag behind similar students nationallyAs dismal as the national NAEP results are, the datasuggest a more serious student achievement problemamong all of California’s students:

■ Compared to national percentages, a lower per-cent of California’s students—both rich andpoor—score at or above “proficient” on theNAEP’s reading, math, and science tests, and ahigher percent score “below basic” than similarstudents in the nationwide sample.

■ The tendency is for a lower percent of California’sstudents—across all ethnic groups reported byNAEP—to score at or above the “proficient” leveland for a higher percent to score “below basic”than do their peers nationally.

Two types of standardized tests thatare used to measure achievementNorm-referenced test: A test in which an individ-ual or group’s performance is compared to a largergroup. Usually the larger group is representative ofthe cross-section of all U.S. students.

Criterion-referenced test: A test that measures astudent’s performance against specific standards, oftenalong a continuum from total lack of skill to excel-lence. Criterion-referenced tests generally have cutscores that determine whether a test-taker has passedor failed the test or has basic, proficient, or advancedskills. Criterion-referenced tests—unlike norm-referenced assessments—are not primarily created tocompare students to each other. The goal is typicallyto have everyone attain a passing mark.

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mission (most recent data) was at least three timeshigher than for the African American and Hispanicstudents who took the test.

■ The percent of African American and Hispanic stu-dents statewide who dropped out of high school in2000–01 (most recent data) is about twice as high asfor Asian and white students. (Specific data on thedropout levels of EL students are unavailable.)

Multiple interrelated factors contribute to the achievement gapSome of the achievement gap appears to stem fromfactors that children bring with them to school,while other factors that contribute to the gap in-clude resources, conditions, and opportunities avail-able for students at school. The next sections morefully explore some of the theories and research onthe causes of the gap and consider some of the pro-posed solutions and California policies aimed at off-setting these factors.

Attempts to explain the achievement gap and pro-posals for narrowing it can be broadly categorized as ei-ther focusing on factors external to schools or factorsthat are school-based. Research and proposed solutionsalso tend to reflect either a “cultural” perspective thatviews behavior as the result of the beliefs and values ofthe individual, family, or group, or a “structural” per-spective that views behavior as the product ofenvironmental factors outside the individual.

These perspectives, in the extreme, createa false dichotomy between “blame the student” and “blame everyone else.” Theachievement gap results from complex andconfounding interrelationships among manydifferent variables including a student’s back-ground, choices, and experiences outside of school, as well as the school’s structure,processes, and commitment to student learn-ing. Unfortunately, however, the causes of thegap as well as solutions for narrowing it tendto unintentionally reinforce that dichotomy.

Some children beginschool at a disadvantage Research shows that children entering schoolfor the first time differ from one another inways that can potentially affect their educa-tional progress. For example, the NationalCenter for Education Statistics’ (NCES) na-tional longitudinal study of children enteringkindergarten in 1998 found that some groupsconsistently lagged behind others on meas-

ures of social, emotional, physical, and cognitive de-velopment. Children from families with mothers whodid not graduate from high school, who received foodstamps or were on welfare, who were headed by a sin-gle parent, and/or whose parents’ primary languagewas not English were disproportionately representedin the low-scoring group. All of these factors correlatehighly with poverty.

Poverty sets the conditions for the gapPoverty is the single best explanation research hasfound for why children differ in ways that affect schoolperformance, both before they enter school and oncethey are enrolled. While poverty does not cause lowachievement, many children living in poverty also areexposed to certain risk factors that are thought to con-tribute to poor student performance. These includelacking access to health care, adequate nutrition, anddecent housing; growing up in a single-parent house-hold; being exposed to substance abuse at a young age;and living in a crime-ridden neighborhood.

Risk factors have a synergistic effect on school per-formance—children with one risk factor typically donot fare as well as those with none, while children withtwo or more risk factors lag far behind those with onlyone. Research also shows that the detrimental effects ofpoverty are more extreme the earlier it occurs in achild’s life, the longer it lasts, and the more severe it is.

Data: California Department of Education EdSource 1/03

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Below Basic BasicFar Below Basic Proficient Advanced





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California Standards Tests show dramatic gaps based onsocioeconomic status* as illustrated by seventh graders

Figure 2

* For the purpose of this chart,“economically disadvantaged” is defined as being eligible for the National School Lunch Program.

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In myriad ways, poverty can constrain a family’sability to provide the type of care, environment, andexperiences children need to grow and develop in thesame ways and at the same rate as their more affluentpeers. Most children are about five years old whenthey first enter kindergarten. Recent research on earlybrain development shows that a child’s environmentand experiences in these five preschool years are im-portant in laying the groundwork for future learning.

Physical, social, and emotional factors are early triggers for theachievement gapThe achievement gap emerges early in children’s livesas the result of certain physical, social, and emotionaldeprivations. In the early stages of pregnancy, the fetalbrain begins to form the trillions of brain cell connec-tions it will use throughout a lifetime. This processcontinues rapidly through the first few years of life.Research shows that the fetal brain and that of theyoung infant are especially vulnerable to damage fromtoxins and malnutrition that can result in learningdisabilities later in life.

Certain children are at greater risk than othersduring these early years: ■ The percent of Hispanic and African American ex-

pectant mothers receiving no prenatal care or careonly in the last trimester is two times greater than forwhite non-Hispanics and Asian/Pacific Islanders, ac-cording to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2001.

■ A higher percent of female-headed households inthe country report having limited or uncertain ac-cess to adequate and safe food than does any otherfamily group, according to the U.S. Department ofAgriculture in a 2000 report.

■ In California, Latino children are more than three timesas likely and African American and Asian/ PacificIsland children more than twice as likely to lack healthcare coverage than are white children, according toChildren Now in a 2002 report.

Neuroscience research also contradicts the widelyheld assumption that infants are born with a fixed in-tellectual capacity. While most neurologists believesome neurons, such as those that control heartbeat andbreathing, are hard-wired by genes, most of the brain’s“wiring” happens in the first three years of life. Withouthaving experiences during these years such as beingread, sung, and talked to, countless potential neuralconnections may wither away or never form at all.

Not to be overlooked are the social factors andprocesses that play an enormous role in determining a

child’s later learning and future academic success. Highfamily stress levels, maternal depression, little interac-tion with the child, and family illiteracy all have a nega-tive impact on a child’s developing capacity to learn.

Being raised in a literate environment increases a child’s chance for future school successOne commonly used proxy for evaluating the type,quality, and quantity of learning and experienceschildren receive at home in their early years is theamount of time they spend looking at books and theamount of time their caregivers spend reading tothem. Exposure to oral and written language beforeentering school is known to broaden children’s vo-cabulary and to facilitate the acquisition of other literacy skills, such as understanding text and storysequencing and associating sounds and letters of thealphabet. Developing these basic literacy skills is critical for later learning in school.

The advantages of early experience with languageand text apply even if the language spoken at home isdifferent from the language used in school. Accordingto a report by the Poverty & Race Research ActionCouncil, considerable evidence exists that the knowl-edge students acquire in speaking and reading theirfirst language is transferable to learning to speak andread a second language.

Children, however, differ in their exposure to early literacy activities:■ In a national survey, twice as many high-income

parents reported reading daily to their young chil-dren as did low-income parents, according to a 2002report by the Educational Testing Service (ETS).

■ In a 1999 study by the NCES, twice as manyhigh-income parents reported visiting a librarywith their young children in the prior month thandid poor parents.

Solutions focus on preschool programs and raising families out of poverty Solutions for minimizing the effects of poverty on student achievement focus on raising families out ofpoverty and providing the care and experiences pre-sumed to be missing in the lives of poor children.

Because the effects of poverty vary by time andseverity, every poor child is likely to benefit to someextent when a family’s economic situation is improved.Strategies for raising families out of poverty include:providing temporary financial assistance while parentsacquire the skills necessary to enter the job market or

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to secure better paying jobs; and/or reducing the drainon limited financial resources by eliminating the taxburden on low-income families. Other possible strate-gies—such as guaranteeing a living wage and changingthe tax structure to narrow the gap between wealth andpoverty—might be effective but are politically chal-lenging to develop and implement.

Another way to offset the effects of poverty is toprovide poor children with opportunities to developthe cognitive and social skills they will need to succeedin school. Strategies include providing free or inexpen-sive programs that help parents acquire the skills andknowledge necessary to create nurturing and stimulat-ing environments for their infants and young children.Another approach—providing stimulating environ-ments for children through organized preschool activi-ties—is the focus of the federal Head Start programand is promoted by universal preschool advocates.

A review of 38 separate studies of early child-hood education programs—15 model programs developed by researchers and 23 Head Start and public school programs—examined the long-term effects of early childhood education on low-incomechildren. W. Steven Barnett, professor at RutgersUniversity and author of the review, found in general that participation in these programs im-proved cognitive development and produced long-term increases in academic achievement and schoolsuccess. Overall, this was true across the range ofprograms and communities studied, though effectsizes were smaller among Head Start and publicschool programs than in model programs.

Possible explanations for the differences betweenpublic and model programs, according to Barnett, arethat the model programs studied tended to begin at an earlier age and lasted longer, were “more intense,”and were implemented better than the public programs.

Few might argue that providing all disadvantagedchildren with early childhood education opportunitiesequaling the quality and duration of these model pro-grams makes sense. However, the feasibility of repli-cating and scaling-up many of these very small,highly-controlled programs is challenging; and thecosts of doing so are enormous.

Some California policies aim at factors external to schoolsCalifornia has a number of policies to help improvethe economic circumstances of poor families and tocompensate for some of the conditions of povertylikely to influence cognitive development andschooling success.

The state finds ways to boost family incomeThe majority of poor young children in California livein working families. One way to improve the eco-nomic circumstances of these families is to eliminateor substantially reduce their state income-tax liability.This boost in take-home pay helps offset the higherchildcare and transportation costs families incur asthey strive to become economically self-sufficient.

California’s income tax threshold—the point atwhich a family owes income tax—has remained wellabove the federal poverty level (FPL) for the lastdecade. In fact, California has the highest incomethreshold of the 42 states taxing earned income. Forexample, in 2001 the threshold was $36,800 for a fam-ily of three—more than twice the FPL for a family of

Research on the effectiveness of social programs abounds The body of research on the effectiveness of socialprograms—to raise families’ income, improve theirhealth, and increase school readiness of their youngchildren—is far more extensive than can be donejustice in this report. Some suggested resources forlearning more about work in this area include:

Growing Up in Poverty, a study of poor famil-ies in Santa Clara and San Francisco counties,by Policy Analysis for Education (PACE).http://pace.berkeley.edu/pace_early.html

Long-Term Outcomes of Early ChildhoodPrograms. The David and Lucile Packard Foun-dation. The Future of Children, Vol. 5, No. 3, Winter1995. www.futureofchildren.org/

National Institute of Child Health and HumanDevelopment (NICHD), a research center of theNational Institutes of Health, which conducts andsupports research on the health of children and fami-lies. NICHD has completed numerous studies on theeffects of early childhood education and child care.www.nichd.nih.gov/about/od/secc/pubs.htm

MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan social policy research organization that studies the impact and ef-fectiveness of public policies on low-income individ-uals, children, and their families. www.mdrc.org

Early Care and Education for Children in Poverty:Promises, Programs, and Long-Term Results. W. S.Barnett and S. S. Boocock, eds. Albany, NY: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1998.

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this size. Over the past decade, California raised its income tax threshold $18,967 (average for all stateswas $7,231) while the FPL increased only $4,180.

These increases provide some economic relief forCalifornia’s poor families but not enough. They donot fully account for the high cost of living in manyareas of California, particularly in and around itsurban centers, nor do they address Social Securityand other payroll taxes, which are a greater burden on poor workers than state income tax. The federalearned income tax credit provides some relief forlower-income families.

Another way to improve the economic circum-stances of poor families is to help parents acquire theskills necessary to enter the job market or to securebetter paying jobs. For adults receiving welfare,CalWORKs—the state’s version of the 1996 federalTemporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) legisla-tion—offers cash assistance (about $8,000 per year fora single-parent family of three), vocational training,educational programs, and childcare services. The pro-gram places a five-year lifetime limit on benefits andhas a mandatory work requirement.

California also offers a variety of classes to help unemployed and low-income adults compete in the job market. Adult schools run by school districts in the state serve approximately 1.7 million adults(1999–2000) in, for example, English as a SecondLanguage (ESL), Citizenship, Vocational, and General Education Development (GED) programs.The 2002–03 state budget for adult education is $582 million, with an additional $91.8 million in the federal budget allocated for California.

California guarantees a minimum wage of $6.75 perhour. Only Washington—at $6.90—offers more. A fam-ily relying solely on the income of a minimum-wageworker in California, however, has an annual income of $13,500 —more than $1,000 below the federalpoverty level for a family of three and less than half ofthe California income tax threshold. It is important to note that in addition to those working at minimumwage in California, migrant workers and illegal immi-grants constitute a sizable group who often work for evenless in the agricultural, domestic, and service industries.

State health programs combat effects of poverty on childrenMany state programs are designed to offset the negativeeffects of poverty on children’s physical and cognitive development. The state’s health programs are the largestin terms of dollars spent and the percentage of childrenserved. The Medi-Cal, Healthy Families (HFP), andChild Health and Disability Prevention (CHDP) pro-

grams, supported with a combination of state and federalfunds—along with various related safety-net programs—provide health insurance for more than one in four chil-dren and seven in 10 poor children in California.

Under current eligibility rules, children who are cit-izens, or are noncitizens legally residing in the UnitedStates, are eligible for either Medi-Cal, HFP, or CHDPif their family’s income does not exceed 250% of thefederal poverty level (FPL). Pregnant women and theirinfants are eligible for Medi-Cal up to 200% FPL. Thespecific program for which children are eligible de-pends on their age, family income, and family size.

However, despite these programs, somewhere between 1.0 and 1.7 million California children—about 16%—are uninsured. Approximately two-thirdsof the uninsured, 75% of whom are Hispanic, are eligible for Medi-Cal or HFP but are not receivingbenefits. One reason appears to be that public health-insurance programs in California are a maze of aidcodes, eligibility categories, and services. Further,Medi-Cal in particular may be administered differ-ently from county to county. According to a recentsurvey by the UCLA Center for Health PolicyResearch, one in three parents with uninsured chil-dren eligible for Medi-Cal thought their children werenot eligible. One in eight objected to some character-istics of the program, particularly the onerous paper-work. The survey also found that parents of nearly onein four uninsured children eligible for HFP did notknow of the program’s existence.

Some changes have been made to streamline thehealth care system and to improve outreach to low-income families in California. For example, the stateimplemented a new web-based application program forHFP—Health-e-App—that allows applications to befilled out in 30 minutes or less. The state also createdan “express lane” eligibility program that would havepublicized HFP coverage to low-income parents whenthey signed up their children for subsidized schoollunches. For fiscal reasons, the governor vetoed fund-ing for this program in the 2002–03 budget.

In addition to state health programs, manyCalifornians receive the benefits of large federalpoverty-relief programs, such as Women, Infants, andChildren (WIC), a program that provides food, nutri-tion education, and referrals for other healthcare andsocial services. More than 1.2 million Californians receive services from WIC every month.

A few state programs are designed to enhance preschool experiencesA few state programs have been specifically designedto enhance the preschool experiences of California’s

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It is well documented that some K–12 educators have lower ex-pectations for achievement for some groups of students than forothers. Harvard University Professor Pedro Noguera (formerlywith University of California, Berkeley) notes:“There is consider-able evidence that the ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds ofstudents have bearing upon how students are perceived andtreated by the adults who work with them within schools.” Thishas been a topic of much discussion over the past decades, andchanging teachers’ attitudes and practices is at the heart of standards-based reforms and NCLB.

While this problem is complex, pervasive, and in need of resolution,there is another issue that should not be ignored—how the valuesand expectations of students’ cultural backgrounds and communitiesinfluence student attitudes about schooling and thus their academicperformance. The extent to which culture affects attitude andachievement is a subject of political sensitivity and some controversy.

The variable that is most consistently correlated with low stu-dent performance is family poverty and a low parent educationlevel.Yet even among students coming from poor families, somecultural groups generally and consistently outperform others inschool. Understanding why this is so could make efforts to nar-row student achievement gaps more effective. Unfortunately, re-search into this phenomenon often has not been accepted asrigorous enough or findings have been inconclusive.

In a survey of more than 20,000 high school students, TempleUniversity Professor Laurence Steinberg and associates found thatAsian students in general were “more engaged” in school.On meas-ures of overall orientation toward school, Asians outscored students of all other backgrounds, including white students.

Steinberg also found that students differ by race/ethnicity in howthey view the consequences of doing poorly in school. “By a sub-stantial margin,Asian students were more likely than other stu-dents to believe that not doing well in school would have negativeconsequences for their future. …It is undue optimism, not exces-sive pessimism, that may be holding black and Latino students backin school.Their problem isn’t that they have lost faith in the valueof education.The problem is that many black and Latino studentsdon’t really believe that doing poorly in school will hurt theirchances for future success.” This view is reinforced by the fact thatmost employers do not ask to see high school transcripts.

Researchers differ regarding cultural causes and effectsUniversity of California, Berkeley, Professor John Ogbu alsosees culture as a critical factor. He argues, however, that community-based “folk theories”—which suggest, for example,that because of the history of discrimination against AfricanAmericans, even those who work hard will never reap rewardsequivalent to whites—contribute to self-defeating behaviorsamong African American students. While acknowledging the

powerful effects of poverty on student performance, Harvard’sPedro Noguera argues that cultural influences may explain why“when compared to their white peers, middle class AfricanAmerican males lag significantly behind in both grade point average and on standardized tests.”

Others theorize that parental and cultural influences—evenwhen supportive of academic success—can be undermined by teens’ strong need for peer approval and acceptance.Steinberg’s research found that Asian students were more likelyto have friends who place a lot of emphasis on doing well inschool—even if these friends were not Asians.The opposite wastrue for African Americans and Hispanics. Steinberg claims thatamong the students surveyed, he found that “peer pressure tonot do well in school is so strong in some of these communitiesthat it actually undermines black and Hispanic parents’ effortsto facilitate their children’s success.”

Public opinion surveys conducted by the nonprofit organizationPublic Agenda underscore the intensity of both black and Hispanicparents’ desire for their children to do well academically. In a 1998study entitled Time to Move On, Public Agenda reported that 82% ofblack parents wanted “the schools their children currently attend tomake raising academic standards and achievement their foremostpriority.” A majority thought “it is absolutely essential for schools toexpect all kids to go on to college,” compared to less than one-thirdof white parents who thought so. Based on another survey con-ducted in 2000 and reported in Great Expectations: How the Publicand Parents…View Higher Education, Public Agenda said that bothAfrican American and Hispanic parents are more likely than whiteparents to say that a college education is “the one thing that canmost help a young person succeed in the world today.”

Strategies for changing the negative effects of cultureand peers remain unprovenThere is considerable evidence that family and cultural expecta-tions have an influence on a student’s academic performance. Butwhen the influence is negative, there is far less evidence and goodinformation on how it can be offset. In some cases, educators andcommunity leaders need to focus their efforts on educating par-ents on how best to support student learning. In other cases, edu-cators should recognize that many parents in low-incomecommunities already hold high expectations and hopes for theirstudent’s academic success and are looking for support from and apartnership with the school to help them offset the influence of anegative adolescent peer culture. In addition, schools can try tocreate positive peer support within the school day or in after-school programs for students who may not have access to high-achieving peers at home or in their neighborhoods.To the extentthat peer and cultural expectations influence a student’s academicoutcomes, this is an important subject for continued study withthe goal of identifying effective supports and interventions.

Do students’ cultural backgrounds help sustain the gap?

10


more than 1.8 million low-income children. The2002–03 Budget Act includes $3.1 billion—$1.7 bil-lion from the General Fund and $1.4 billion in fed-eral funds. The funds provide for approximately566,000 “childcare slots”—249,000 (44%) are re-served for current and former CalWORKs recipients.However, most CalWORKs childcare funding doesnot go toward actual slots in childcare centers but toindividuals who are reimbursed through vouchers forthe home-based care they offer. The quality of thesechildcare settings is uneven.

Of the $3.1 billion appropriation, $1.4 billion goesto non-CalWORKs programs, including:■ State Preschool program ($308 million) that serves

100,000 children in part-day, comprehensive, devel-opmental programs for three- to five-year-olds fromlow-income families.

■ General Child Care and Development program($512 million) that serves 89,500 infant to 14-year-olds in public and private centers providing basicsupervision, nutrition, and parent education.

■ Migrant Child Care ($26.5 million) that serves9,000 children of agricultural workers for varyinglengths of time depending on the harvesting activi-ties in the area.

The federal Head Start program that serves about97,000 California children is managed directly by thefederal government without state involvement and isnot included in this number.

The effects of these programs on children’s latereducational progress are not documented in any systematic way. The state, however, has licensing requirements for employees in publicly funded facilities. Privately operated facilities in the state are not required to employ licensed personnel. Ingeneral, licenses must be renewed every five yearswith proof of additional professional training and/orcollege coursework.

High-quality childcare programs are expensive.Children Now, a California nonprofit organizationthat studies and advocates for children’s issues, esti-mates the average cost for a full-time, early-care program in California in 2000 was $430 per month or 12% of the state’s median family income. Outside the public programs listed above, there are few oppor-tunities for the state’s low-income children to par-ticipate in organized preschool activities before they enter public school. Like 37 other states, Californiadoes not require parents to enroll their children inkindergarten, but nine out of 10 children do attend.Thirteen states require children to attend kin-

dergarten, and two of these—West Virginia andLouisiana—require full-day attendance.

Proposition 10 earmarks resources for earlychildhood developmentProposition 10, passed in 1998, provided a new revenuesource for county-level programs aimed at helpingpreschoolers. This voter initiative created the Childrenand Families First program to “promote, support, andoptimize early childhood development” of childrenfrom before birth to their fifth birthday. Funding comesfrom an increase in the state tax on cigarettes and othertobacco products. The revenue from this increase—ap-proximately $700 million per year—is divided amongthe state’s 58 counties based on the number of livebirths in each county. Funds may be spent on a broadrange of programs to support and improve the develop-ment of children under the age of five, without regardto socioeconomic or residency status.

A commission appointed by each county’s boardof supervisors decides how funds are allocated. Localprograms vary from expanding and improving sheltersfor homeless families to integrating the administrationof various county programs for young children.

The belief that schools canand should narrow the gappropels education reformFor decades a driving force in education reform hasbeen confidence—or at least optimism—that schoolscan help students overcome the factors they bringwith them to school that limit academic achievement.In pursuit of that goal, researchers have for more than40 years doggedly pursued answers as to why some stu-dents and schools perform better than others. Thefindings from much of this work are mixed and pro-vide little guidance in designing discrete solutionswith reliable and predictable results. To the extentthat conclusions have been drawn, they indicate thatno silver bullet exists. Narrowing the achievement gaprequires a comprehensive set of strategies that are in-terdependent and crafted to meet local needs.

A “whole-school” approach may be necessary to improve studentachievementIn the 1970s researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom independently began to studyschools that were successfully educating students regardless of their socioeconomic status or familybackground. Collectively this work became known as “effective schools research.”

11


Effective-schools research supports the notionthat all children can learn and that schools controlthe factors necessary to assure student mastery of arigorous core curriculum. In this respect, the researchcountered the interpretations of Coleman’s earlierwork that schools could do little to compensate forthe differences in family backgrounds that so stronglyinfluenced children’s school performance.

Out of this research come the “Correlates ofEffective Schools,” which include:■ Safe and orderly environment: There is an orderly,

purposeful, business-like atmosphere.■ Climate of high expectations: The staff believes

and demonstrates that all students can achievemastery of the school’s curriculum.

■ Instructional leadership: The principal acts as aninstructional leader and effectively and persistentlycommunicates the mission of the school to staff,parents, and students.

■ Clear and focused mission: There is a clearly ar-ticulated mission of the school through which thestaff shares an understanding of and a commitmentto the school’s goals, priorities, assessment proce-dures, and accountability.

■ Opportunity to learn and student time on task:A high percentage of classroom time is dedicated to student-learning activities.

■ Frequent monitoring of student progress:A student’s progress toward achieving the essential objectives is measured frequently, and the results of these assessments are used to improve the individual student’s behaviors and performance as well as to improve the curriculum as a whole.

■ Home-school relations: Parents support theschool’s mission and have the opportunity to par-ticipate in meeting it.

The effective-schools research was the impetusfor a number of “whole school” reforms such asAccelerated Schools, Modern Red School House, and Success For All. Though the more than 100whole-school designs available today differ in theircurriculum and/or instructional focus, they share incommon certain characteristics that distinguish themfrom other popular reforms. Most notably, they takean organizational approach to improving student per-formance—focusing more on how schools do thingsthan on what schools do.

In 1991 New American Schools (NAS), a privatenonprofit, was created to help schools and districtsdramatically raise student performance by usingwhole-school designs. In eight jurisdictions and almost

200 schools across the country, NAS helped with im-plementation and contracted with RAND to evaluateprogress along the way.

Three years into scale-up, RAND reported that ofthe 163 schools for which it had data, test scores inmathematics for half of the schools and scores in read-ing for nearly half had improved at a faster rate thanscores for their respective districts. These results wereconsistent with the few independent studies conductedon whole-school programs.

However, RAND researchers found that their abil-ity to draw definitive conclusions about the effective-ness of various whole-school designs in improvingstudent achievement was hampered by a lack of longi-tudinal data comparable across all schools and dis-tricts, as well as dramatic variation in how fully thedesigns had been implemented. They also raised thequestion of whether full implementation is even possi-ble in the existing system, stating that “schools arenot, by and large, fertile ground for ‘break the mold’ideas, often because of a lack of capacity or because oflocal, state, or district regulations.”

“Systemic reform” emerges as a meansfor improving student achievementThe effective-schools approachreflected a shift that was alsooccurring within the researchcommunity in the mid-to-late1980s. A consensus was build-ing that the meager results ofprevious school reforms weredue to the very nature of the reforms, which analystscharacterized as “top down”and “more of the same.”Researchers argued that thecentralized, multilayered,compliance-driven, and bu-reaucratic nature of publicschooling—so perfectly de-signed to promote stability—was equally well designed toresist even well-intentionedreforms. Researchers beganlooking for an organizationalstructure that promoted excel-lence and accountabilitywhile remaining flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances.

The answer for many researchers was found in

“Schools are not,

by and large,

fertile ground for

‘break the mold’

ideas, often

because of a lack

of capacity or

because of local,

state, or district

regulations.”

12


studies being done at the time on successful organi-zations in the private sector. This work, popularized in books like In Search of Excellence by Tom Petersand Robert Waterman, examined knowledge-based,

labor-intensive organizationsthat were similar to publiceducation. Successful oneswere “flat,” with only a fewlayers of administration andauthority, all of which fo-cused on the organization’smission. Higher levels ofthe organization establishedthe overall goals, securedresources, provided infor-mation, and measured per-formance. The front-lineworkers were held account-able for results but were alsogiven the flexibility, train-ing, and authority to deter-mine how best to achievethose results.

Critics argued that: 1)public and private organiza-tions were not compara-ble—education has multiplegoals and serves many con-stituents; 2) stability is avalued characteristic in animportant social institutionsuch as public education;and 3) it was unrealistic toexpect to dramaticallychange a large organizationdefined both in purpose andprocess by various state con-stitutions and volumes oflegal code.

In the early 1990s “sys-temic reform” emerged as astrategy for accomplishingsuch an “unrealistic” trans-

formation. Marshall Smith and Jennifer O’Day, whocoined the term, proposed a systematic approach totransforming public education along the lines delin-eated in private-sector research. The strategy includedthree major components: ■ A unifying vision and goals;■ A coherent system of instructional guidance that

defines what students need to know and be able todo, and provides students with the opportunity tomeet the standards;

■ A restructured governance system, in which the responsibilities at all levels—school, district, andstate—are defined.

States took charge of developing a unifyingvision and instructional guidanceEach state was to take the lead in creating the vision.The first step was to define a core of challenging andengaging knowledge, skills, and problem-solving ca-pacities as goals for all students. Overcoming the pol-icy “fragmentation” that had resulted from years of“project-oriented” reforms required coordination atthe state level of the key elements affecting instruc-tion: curriculum and curricular materials, pre-serviceand in-service teacher training, and assessment.

States responded surprisingly quickly to the idea of systemic reform. Many, including California, hadpreviously developed curriculum frameworks that setout the best thinking in the field about the knowledge,processes, and skills students needed to know. States setabout making these more explicit by creating subject-matter content standards that would then be used to setcurriculum and change teacher-preparation programs.

By the mid-1990s new student assessments alignedwith these standards were in the works as were ac-countability measures. A few states—Florida, Ohio,and Texas most notably—quickly took the lead in developing comprehensive information systems that provided both schools and the public with measures of student progress. These were not just accountabil-ity instruments. They were also designed to providelocal educators with the information necessary to adjust their instructional practices to best meet theneeds of their students. In fact, Florida’s system wasrecently able to provide the state’s Board of Regents—within two weeks of their request—a report on thehigh schools attended, the courses taken, and theteachers for every entering college freshman requiringremedial classes.

Policymakers have largely ignored restructuring governance systemsMuch of the systemic reform done by states has focusedon aligning curriculum and assessments with learningstandards. The “standards-based” reform movement hasvirtually ignored Smith and O’Day’s other compo-nent—restructuring the governance system.

After a decade of systemic reform, few stateshave done anything to flatten the organizationalstructure of public education or to increase the au-thority of local educators in matters of funding,policy, or practice. California is a case in point. Inthe last decade, the state developed a series of con-tent standards for students in core subjects and

After a decade

of systemic reform,

few states have

done anything

to flatten the

organizational

structure of public

education or to

increase the

authority of

local educators

in matters of

funding, policy,

or practice.

13


aligned new teacher preparation standards, ac-countability systems, and student and teacher as-sessments with these standards. Such top-downactivity is compatible with the flow of authority inmultilayered organizations. The more difficult por-tion of systemic reform is the shifting of authorityto those closest to the work—in this case localschools—because it requires a fundamental changein the organizational processes and culture. Re-search on private-sector organizations shows that itis easier to create new “flat” organizations than it isto restructure formerly top-down, centralized sys-tems into these types of operations.

Thus reforms have been put into place atop a maze of existing programs, many of which arehighly regulated in terms of their operation andlocal district accountability. For example, numerouscategorical programs—as many as 70 in California—and their attendant rules and regulations still funnellarge amounts of money to local districts. Critics be-lieve these programs prevent schools from designingeffective programs and empowering local educators.Further, the relationship between funding and needhas eroded over time as few categorical programs in the state are updated to reflect the changing demographics of schools. Yet most of the programsexist because they addressed a problem and still have constituencies that support them politicallywhether or not the problem still exists. Block grants that would allow more flexibility in localspending and program design have been usedsparingly in California.

The charter school movement is, in part, a reac-tion to the research on the importance of organiza-tional structure. These schools are formed andoperated outside most of the rules and regulationscontrolling other public schools. Most states considercharter schools experimental, which may explain, atleast in part, why so many states allow charter schoolsto operate but resist empowering traditional publicschools with similar flexibility and authority.

The Consortium for Policy Research in Education(CPRE), a multiuniversity research center, has trackedsystemic reform from the beginning. Several of theirevaluations, such as those done in Minnesota, havefound that while local educators applaud attempts tobring coherence to the system, many feel that systemicreform is far from systemic. For these educators, sys-temic reform—or more specifically the standards-based reform effort—is playing out as just another in a long series of educational reforms. Standards andthe accompanying changes are simply layered onto theexisting system.

It is difficult to come to any definitive conclu-sions on the specific effects of systemic reform onstudent achievement. First, no state has fully imple-mented systemic reform. Second, it is impossible toassess student progress because the very nature ofthe reform means that current measures of studentperformance are different from those used before thereform. Finally, there is no way to know how stu-dents would have fared without the reform as nocontrol group exists.

What is known, however, is that states such asTexas, North Carolina, and Connecticut that havesustained reform policies across governors and partieshave met with success in improving student achieve-ment. According to Smith, “sustaining” appears to beas important as any specific reform itself.

A new federal initiative continuesthe same reform philosophyNew and far-reaching federal legislation is the nextstep in this evolutionary story of education reform.The stated goal of the 2001 law, the No Child LeftBehind Act (NCLB), is to “close the achievementgap between disadvantaged and minority studentsand their peers.” The bill reauthorizes the Elementaryand Secondary Education Act (ESEA)—originallyenacted in 1965 to provide funds for compensatoryeducation programs, such as Title I. NCLB calls for“stronger accountability for results, increased flexibil-ity and local control, expanded options for parents,and an emphasis on teaching methods that have beenproven to work.”

NCLB adds $836 million (2002–03) to Cali-fornia’s current federal funding. In return for that, thelaw requires that California ensure that all its studentsbe academically “proficient” within 12 years. NCLBrequires standards in a wide variety of educationalareas for the specific purpose of narrowing theachievement gap. For example, beginning in 2002–03,states can hire only “highly qualified” teachers atschools receiving Title I funding.

California policies have variedrationales and resultsEducation research over the last 30 years has in-cluded extensive investigations of the factors influ-encing student achievement. The results of much ofthis research—especially as it pertains to publicschooling—are inconclusive, if not contradictory,and provide few definitive answers on how best toimprove learning for all students, in particular thelowest-performing students. Still, states struggle to

14


improve education with the best evidence possible,or sometimes in spite of it.

At times in concert with standards-based reforms,and at times independent of them, California stateleaders have crafted many policies aimed at narrowingthe achievement gap. Some have been highly targeted,and some have been aimed at educational improve-ment generally. The following section, which focuseson California, groups the state’s efforts according tothe focus or strategy at work, including funding,teacher quality, student learning, school organizationand management, and external pressure to leverageimprovement. This organization is not meant to implythat these policies were adopted or implemented as acomprehensive, integrated strategy.

School funding is often associatedwith educational performanceOne of the most commonly accepted explanations forthe differences in student performance has been thenotion that unequal access to funding is linked to unequal educational opportunity, which results in unequal academic performance. This has been the ra-tionale for much of the school funding litigation overthe past 40 years. The research on the connection be-tween money and student achievement is, however,inconclusive and highly controversial.

Policies and court cases address funding equity issuesIn California, the 1970s Serrano v. Priest lawsuit wasone of the first of many cases across the country inwhich plaintiffs charged that variations in schoolfunding were discriminatory and unconstitutional. A2000 analysis by Jon Sonstelie and associates of thePublic Policy Institute of California (PPIC)—entitledFor Better or for Worse? School Finance Reform inCalifornia—shows however, that contrary to theclaims of the Serrano plaintiffs, variations in fundingacross California school districts at the time “did notappear to be systematically related to race, ethnicity, orfamily income.” In fact, a high proportion of poor andminority students attended—and still do attend—schools in high-revenue urban districts.

The court-mandated changes in California re-sulted in one of the most equalized district-level fund-ing systems in the country. However, the state achievedthis equalization more by slowing the growth of spend-ing by wealthier districts than by raising spending inpoorer districts, contrary to many other states.

California’s experience suggests that equalizingfunding across districts is not sufficient to close, oreven narrow, the achievement gap. As discussed ear-lier, the state suffers a large and persistent gap between

the performance of disadvantaged students and theirmore advantaged peers—even after 30 years of court-mandated equalization. It can be argued, however,that California only illustrates that misdirected equal-ization at low levels of funding has little effect on stu-dent performance. Money, it would seem, still matters.But then there is New Jersey.

New Jersey’s school funding was also challengedin the courts. Over the course of 25 years of litiga-tion, the court moved from a focus on statewideequalization to requiring that funding in a number of “special districts”—low-performing districts withhigh percentages of disadvantaged students—beraised to that of the highest-spending districts in thestate. Even when adjusted for cost-of-living differ-ences, these “special districts” receive more moneyper student than any district in California—andhave for several years. Student performance in NewJersey’s “special districts” continues to be abysmallylow, but it remains to be seen whether equalizationwill pay off in the long run.

Debate over the distribution of educational dol-lars within states is likely to continue for reasons ofequity and fairness. However, with little compellingevidence on the direct connection between moneyand student performance and with the unsatisfyingeffects of equalization on narrowing the achievementgap, the notion of “adequacy” of educational oppor-tunities is replacing older constructs of “equity” ofeducational dollars. “Adequacy” is an approach toschool funding that begins with the premise that theamount of funding schools receive should be basedon some estimate of the cost of achieving the state’seducational goals. This approach attempts to answertwo questions: How much money would be enough,and how would it best be spent? Thus, researchersand courts are beginning to focus less on money perse and more on what that money buys.

Programs to narrow the achievement gap use categorical fundingSince the early days of President Lyndon Johnson’s“Great Society,” the federal government has ear-marked funds for special programs and services aimedat improving the academic performance of the coun-try’s most disadvantaged students. For example, HeadStart and Title I funnel federal dollars to states in sup-port of programs for poor and disadvantaged children.

States responded by either expanding on federalprograms or creating and funding their own initiativesto provide additional services to low-achieving groups.Many of California’s educational programs provide ad-ditional funds to districts with large populations of

15


disadvantaged, low-performing students. These “cate-gorical” programs, as researcher Lawrence Picus notes,“are not always reviewed or updated in light of studentneeds or district characteristics.” An analysis byEdSource showed that in 1999–2000, a district’s totalrevenues bore little relation to the number of disad-vantaged children it served.

California officials have taken little action tochange the state’s system of school funding since theSerrano court ruling. Increasingly, however, state lead-ers are debating the value and effectiveness of dispens-ing such a large portion of education funding throughearmarked categorical programs. According to theLegislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), the state increasedper-pupil funding over the last decade by $1,390(25%)—adjusted for inflation and changes in atten-dance accounting. About a third of K–12 funds are allocated through various categorical programs. TheLAO also notes that evaluations of categorical pro-grams “have offered largely inconclusive evidence ofprogram success or failure.”

The LAO recommends that the majority of cate-goricals be consolidated into five block grants—Academic Improvement, Compensatory Education,Alternative Education, School Safety, and TeacherSupport and Development. The LAO recommenda-tion is consistent with research on high-performingorganizations in that block grants, unlike categori-cals, give local educators more control and authorityover resources while still holding them accountablefor results. NCLB echoes the LAO’s recommenda-tions in that it emphasizes increasing local programflexibility. Yet it is also forcing states to adapt some oftheir policies very specifically in the name of general educational quality as well as accountability.

The California State Legislature has not acteddirectly on the LAO recommendations to consoli-date categoricals, though policymakers will likelyconsider some form of consolidation and increasedcategorical flexibility to help address California’s cur-rent fiscal crisis. The Legislature, however, affirmedthe need to examine the state’s funding system bypassing the Quality Education Model Act in 2002.This law creates a commission charged with develop-ing a model upon which policymakers can base a reasonable cost estimate for operating schools capa-ble of helping students meet state standards. It wouldalso help policymakers decide how best to directavailable resources in support of that goal. This is a commitment to at least consider an “adequacy” approach to school funding similar to what otherstates—including Oregon, Wyoming, andMaryland—have done in recent years.

Teachers are a crucial but unevenlydistributed resourceIn recent years litigation and research has focused lesson money and more on the resources that moneybuys. According to much of the research, the singlemost important school resource linked to academicsuccess is the teacher. In an exhaustive study of re-source distribution in California, PPIC found the fol-lowing based on 1997 data:■ Among school resources, the level of teacher expe-

rience and the percentage of teachers without a fullcredential are the variables most strongly related tostudent outcomes.

■ Schools with particularly disadvantaged stu-dents are likely to have less-educated and less-experienced teachers.

■ Asians and whites are taught by teachers who aremore experienced, better educated, and more likelyto be fully credentialed than are teachers of AfricanAmericans and Hispanics.

Several researchers haveattempted to quantify the ef-fect of “good” or “bad” teach-ers on student performance.For example, economist EricHanushek has found in hisstudies that having “good”teachers five years in a row can eliminate the averageachievement gap between apoor student and his or herhigher-income peer. Hanushekdefines a teacher’s quality interms of how much gain inachievement his or her stu-dents have in one year. Thebest teachers might get a gainof one-and-a-half grade levels,while poor teachers might geta gain of half a year during oneacademic year.

The evidence on the importance of teachers to stu-dent learning appears convincing, though the re-search findings are mixed as to what specific teachercharacteristics—credentials, courses studied, qualityof college attended, years of experience—are mostassociated with student achievement. It is importantto remember, however, that teacher quality no matterhow it is defined is most often associated in the re-search with only modest gains in student perfor-

The research

on the connection

between money

and student

achievement is

inconclusive

and highly

controversial.

16


mance. For example, a recent study by Julian Bettsand Anne Danenberg predicts that the achievementgap between low-performing and high-performing

schools in California wouldbe reduced by only 10% ifteacher quality (measuredby credential status) wasequivalently high in bothtypes of schools.

Nevertheless, whenCalifornia policymakersconfronted data confirmingthat the state’s lowest-performing schools had adisproportionate share ofuncredentialed teachers,they created several pro-grams to try to change thatsituation. For one, they de-cided to build on the state’sexisting support for NationalBoard certification forteachers, adding an extra fi-nancial incentive for suc-cessful candidates who agreeto teach in low-performingschools. To becomeNational Board certified, ateacher must complete anextensive series of writtenand performance-based as-sessments in pedagogy and

subject content based on thehighest standards of practice. The state’s 2001–02budget included $10 million in state funds for fee sub-sidies and one-time awards.

California has seen a dramatic increase in thenumber of National Board-certified teachers from217 in 1999 to nearly 2,000 in 2002. In 2000–01,the latest available data for the state’s NationalBoard certification incentive program, 361 of thethen-790 National Board-certified teachers hadcommitted to teaching in low-performing schools.However, California’s teacher workforce currentlystands at more than 300,000.

Additionally, there is controversy around the effec-tiveness of board-certified teachers in improving stu-dent achievement. In fall 2002 the National Board forProfessional Teacher Standards (NBPTS), the organiza-tion that operates the certification program, commis-sioned 22 separate, independent studies to assess theimpact of the program, including its impact on studentachievement and on low-performing schools.

Since 1999 state leaders used a number of otherexisting and new programs to attempt to encouragecredentialed teachers to work in the most challengingschools. This included the $89 million Teaching As aPriority (TAP) program, which gives districts flexibil-ity to develop their own local initiatives around thisgoal. There are no restrictions on how the money maybe used—signing bonuses, improved working condi-tions, teacher compensation, and housing subsides areall permissible—but districts must demonstrate a re-duction in the number of teachers holding emergencypermits or waivers in every funded school to qualifyfor subsequent awards.

The proportion of underqualified teachers remainshigh in the state’s lowest-performing schools andthose serving the most disadvantaged students. In its2002 report on the status of teaching in California,the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning(CFTL) reports that, in schools with the highest per-centages of minority students, more than 20% ofteachers are underqualified as compared with less than5% of teachers in schools serving the lowest percent-ages of minorities. In schools where 76%–100% ofstudents are poor, 19% of teachers are not fully cre-dentialed. In contrast, in schools with the lowest per-centages of poor students, on average only 8% ofteachers are not fully credentialed.

CFTL also found that in the lowest-performingschools, as ranked in the Academic PerformanceIndex (API), on average 21% of teachers are not fullycredentialed and 18% are in their first two years ofteaching. In the highest-ranking schools, 5% of teach-ers are not fully credentialed, and 10% of the facultyare in their first or second years.

Professional development could help to mitigate inadequate teacher preparation In 1999 California began to revamp its state-supportedteacher professional development program by creatingProfessional Development Institutes (PDI) to provideintensive teacher training tied to the state’s standards inthe four core academic areas: English language arts,mathematics, science, and history/social studies. In2001 the state shifted funding and responsibility tolocal districts by establishing the Mathematics andReading Professional Development Program, whichgives districts incentive funds to provide their own standards-based professional development for teachers.The training is modeled after the PDIs. From the per-spective of narrowing the achievement gap, lawmakersexpected that these programs would help to raise theknowledge and skill levels of inexperienced and under-qualified teachers, many of whom are serving in schoolswith the most disadvantaged children.

The proportion

of underqualified

teachers remains

high in the state’s

lowest-performing

schools and

those serving

the most

disadvantaged

students.

17


In 2001–02 and 2002–03, the governor proposedfunding the program at $80 million and $100 mil-lion, respectively, but then later cut funding to $31.7million each of those years, due to the state’s fiscalcrisis. The governor proposed $63.5 million for theprogram in 2003–04.

Standards-based reforms try to improve how well students learnCertainly a major goal of standards-based reform is todefine rigorous learning expectations and to enable allstudents, even the lowest achievers, to reach them.California’s content standards and an extensive invest-ment in aligned curriculum and professional develop-ment focus on achieving that goal. Specific to theachievement gap, then, are policies aimed at providingextra help to those students for whom the higher ex-pectations are most daunting.

In the face of inconclusive and often contradictoryfindings about which instructional strategies narrowthe achievement gap, California policymakers and vot-ers have nonetheless proceeded to enact a number ofpolicies attempting to do just that. None, perhaps, hasbeen more controversial than how best to teach thestate’s growing population of English language learners.

Policies address how English language learners are educatedIn California one cannot address the achievement gapwithout looking at how English learners are educated.The state’s voters took a hand in policymaking in 1998when they overwhelmingly passed Proposition 227,which requires, with a few exceptions, that all publicschool instruction in the state be conducted in English.The law nearly eliminated bilingual education, requiringinstead that English learners be taught through shelteredEnglish immersion programs “not normally intended toexceed one year.” A limited number of schools havewaivers from the State Board of Education (SBE) thatallow them to operate bilingual programs instead.

WestEd and the American Institutes for Research(AIR) are charged with evaluating the implementa-tion and effects of Proposition 227. In 2002 they released the second annual report of their five-yearstudy in which the academic progress of English-only(EO) students is compared with the progress ofEnglish learners (EL) and those EL students redesig-nated as “fluent English proficient” (RFEP). Withunique access to student-level Stanford-9 test scores,researchers were not only able to track the progress of successive groups of students (e.g., 3rd graders in1998, 1999, and so on) but also progress of students asthey moved through school (e.g., 3rd graders in 1998,4th graders in 1999, and so on). In general, the study

found that the significant gaps between the perfor-mance of EO and EL/RFEP students persist, thoughthey narrowed slightly between 1998 and 2002.

The state hopes to have better information about its EL students in the future, in part throughadministration of the California English LanguageDevelopment Test (CELDT) that standardized schooldistricts’ assessment of English proficiency for thesestudents. The needs of English learners also receivedattention as the state adopted new textbooks. TheSBE requires that, in order to be considered for adop-tion, reading/language arts textbooks must include a 30–45 minute lesson designed for English learnersthat is beyond the minimum daily instructional requirement for all students.

State leaders implement programs to helpstruggling students In an attempt to provide extra instructional support forstudents unable to master the standards during the regular school day—or in the traditional school setting—state leaders initiated a number of supplemental instruc-tion programs. These included the Elementary SchoolIntensive Reading Program and a handful of remedialafter-school and summer school programs for students ingrades 2–12. In 2002–03 California appropriated $450million to school districts to operate these programs.

The state has also made a significant investmentin its Before and After School Learning and SafeNeighborhoods Program—school-based partnershipswith local governments and nonprofit groups tooperate academic support and enrichment activitiesfor students before and after regular school hours.This investment has grown from $50 million in1999–2000 to $122 million in 2002–03. In additionto complying with state regulations for operatinghours and program elements, participants are re-quired to submit annual outcome data on academicperformance, attendance, and positive behavioralchanges of students enrolled in these programs.

In November 2002 Californians supportedProposition 49, which will likely increase the state’scontribution to the newly named After SchoolEducation and Safety Program to $550 million per year beginning in 2004–05. All schools will be able to access these funds for their after-school programs.However, current Before and After School Learningand Safe Neighborhoods Program grantees and schoolsserving a majority of low-income students have first priority. These first-priority programs have grant caps of$75,000 for elementary school programs and $100,000for middle schools, while second-priority programgrants will be capped at lower amounts.

18

Some measures attempt to motivate students to achieveAlong with support for students, policymakers decided that state measures could help to motivate all students to better achieve. For example, the

Governor’s Scholarship pro-grams award scholarships for college tuition and feesto 9th, 10th, and 11thgraders who score well on the state achievementtest and to those who, in addition, score well onmath and science AdvancedPlacement (AP) or Inter-national Baccalaureate (IB)exams. In its first two yearsof existence, the programshave awarded more than220,000 scholarships.

One purpose of the High School Exit Exam(CAHSEE) is to motivatestudents to higher achieve-ment. Beginning with theclass of 2004, Californiahigh school seniors are expected to pass the CAHSEE in order to receivea diploma. By law, studentshave multiple opportunitiesto take the exam, and dis-tricts must help prepare stu-dents who are not makingsignificant progress towardpassing it. After the first

two administrations of the CAHSEE, a total of 48% of students in the class of2004 have passed both sections of the exam.

In an effort to put an end to “social promotion”—allowing students to move to the next grade based ontheir age rather than their achievement, a practicethat lawmakers perceived as all too common inCalifornia public schools—the Legislature and gover-nor passed legislation in 1998 requiring each schooldistrict to develop an official policy on the promotionand retention of students. Policies must establish ameans for identifying students who are at risk of beingretained based on their STAR test results, grades, orother locally-established performance indicators.Subsequent legislation provided funds to school dis-tricts to offer summer school, after-school, Saturday,and intersession programs for these students.

These programs encourage students to take seri-ously their schoolwork and performance on statetests. In addition, the CAHSEE and laws aroundpupil promotion provide districts and schools withsystematic means for identifying students who arenot meeting minimum state standards so educatorscan provide remediation before it is too late.

But these strategies are not without their critics.For example, the CAHSEE is the focus of intensepublic debate on a number of fronts. As a result, pol-icymakers have given the SBE authority to delay re-quiring seniors to pass the exam if an evaluation ofthe exam shows that the requirement is unfair tosome students. Opponents of the test say that manystudents who would be denied diplomas because theyfailed the exam have not had access to the curricu-lum and instruction needed to pass it.

Class size may affect student performanceAmong teachers and parents, one of California’s mostpopular school reforms is class size reduction (CSR). Ithas also represented a major investment of money andenergy on the part of the state’s education system.

The findings from a substantial body of researchon the effect of class size on student achievement aremixed. Studies that found a positive relationship sug-gest that the benefits of smaller classes, usually around17 students, are greatest for disadvantaged studentsand those in the earliest elementary grades.

The most compelling evidence of the positive ef-fects of small classes on student performance comesfrom Tennessee’s Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio(STAR) project and Wisconsin’s Student AchievementGuarantee in Education (SAGE) pilot program. A re-view of these and other CSR programs suggests certainconditions are necessary for this expensive reform to re-sult in any significant and lasting student achievementgains. These conditions include an adequate supply ofqualified teachers, sufficient classroom space, differen-tial targeting of resources to poor and minority stu-dents, and the integration of CSR with other reformsfocused on improving instruction and curriculum.

In 1996 the California Legislature created a K–3 CSR program. Districts receive per pupil fund-ing for each K–3 classroom with 20 or fewer stu-dents. The total cost for CSR in California is about$1.7 billion a year.

California’s CSR program differed in a number ofways from programs implemented in other states. Mostnotably, California’s initiative was:■ A freestanding program, not integrated in a broader

reform package;


Studies suggest

that the benefits

of smaller classes,

usually around

17 students,

are greatest

for disadvantaged

students and

those in

the earliest

elementary grades.


■ Put in place all at once, with no pilot tests orphase-in period;

■ A one-size-fits-all program that did not targetschools or districts with high populations of thosemost likely to benefit—poor and minority students;

■ Implemented with inadequate classroom space andqualified teachers—the percentage of K–3 teachersnot fully credentialed went from 1.8% before CSRto 12.5% in the second year;

■ Not tied to teacher training in instructional meth-ods for smaller classes.

The California CSR Research Consortium, chargedwith evaluating California’s initiative for the state, re-cently reported that “there is little connection betweenscore gains and participation in CSR.” This is, perhaps,not surprising given the nature of California’s programand its inconsistency with the research on effectiveCSR initiatives. The CSR Research Consortium, ofwhich EdSource is a part, also found that, despite thecost of the program and its so-far disappointing effecton student achievement, the initiative remains verypopular among parents and teachers.

Based on its research and on the Tennessee STARfindings, the consortium recommended that Californiafurther test the effectiveness of CSR in narrowing theachievement gap by conducting a pilot study in whichschools serving large numbers of low-income and mi-nority students would reduce class sizes to 15 or fewer.

Reforms try to improve school organization and managementThe apparent lackluster effects of California’s CSR reform on student achievement were likely not a sur-prise to many researchers. Rather, they are consistentwith research on what happens to initially successfulproject-oriented reforms when they are incompletelyreplicated or implemented in dissimilar settings. The importance of setting is a central concept of therestructuring movement, including whole-school designs and systemic reform proposals.

Research suggests approaches to changingwhole-school operationsThe effective-schools research began as a search forthose factors that explain why some schools with tra-ditionally underperforming student populations areacademically successful. Researchers found the struc-ture and operations of the individual school are key.Over time, organizational management theories pro-vided significant additions to this research as con-cepts such as decentralization, empowerment, andtotal quality management were added as centraltenets of whole-school designs.

California has integrated some of the concepts ofthe restructuring movement within its accountabilitysystem by requiring underperforming schools to de-velop schoolwide action plans to improve studentachievement. In 1999 California lawmakers createdthe Immediate Intervention/Underperforming SchoolsProgram (II/USP), which provides incentive funding toschools to develop and implement a plan for improve-ment. Schools from the bottom half of the AcademicPerformance Index (API), which ranks schools basedon test scores, are invited to participate in this pro-gram. In return for the incentive funding, schools mustimprove their API scores by specified amounts or facesanctions such as staff reassignment or school closure.

A growing concern among policymakers about theschools at the bottom of the API led to the creationof the High Priority Schools Grant Program (HPSGP)in 2001. In 2002 schools in the first decile—or bot-tom 10%— of the API were targeted for participationin this program.

Currently, a two-phase, in-dependent evaluation is under-way of the Public SchoolsAccountability Act, of whichII/USP is a major component.Preliminary findings released inJuly 2002 reveal that the firsttwo groups of participatingschools had slightly fasterachievement growth than com-parable schools, though the dif-ferences were not large enoughto be statistically significant.Researchers found that thesedifferences were most pro-nounced during schools’ firstyear—the planning year—ofparticipation. They found thatwhile the II/USP was an effec-tive catalyst for change for someschools, it was not for others fora variety of reasons. The evalu-ators’ findings were based on anincomplete sample.

Federal policies—particu-larly the federal ComprehensiveSchool Reform Program thatbegan in 1998—have inter-acted with and been fundedalongside California’s II/USPprograms. The purpose of theComprehensive School ReformProgram is to support schools

California has

integrated some

of the concepts of

the restructuring

movement within

its accountability

system by requiring

underperforming

schools to

develop schoolwide

action plans to

improve student

achievement.

19

20

that are implementing research-based, comprehensiveschool reforms in order to raise student achievement.

Researchers investigate what role school-level leadership playsResearch shows that complex organizations—such asschools and school districts—often suffer from “drift”with respect to their core values and mission. Theseorganizations require strong leadership to keep themfocused. The effective-schools research also empha-sizes the need for strong leadership. In effectiveschools, principals see it as their obligation to makesure that everyone has a shared sense of purpose and a shared understanding that the mission of the school

is “learning for all.” In short,the research shows that astrong instructional leader is a necessary, though notsufficient, component of an effective school.

In a 2000 report by theNational Staff DevelopmentCouncil, the group recom-mended several actions thatpolicymakers and educatorscould take to improve theinstructional leadership inschools. The group sug-gested ways to improve theleadership skills of princi-pals, to build teachers’ capacity to share in theleadership responsibilities at their schools, and to encourage promising candidates to become administrators.

California has given anod to the importance ofschool leadership with someof its reforms. Under thePrincipal Training Act, districts receive incentivefunding to provide profes-sional development forschool site administratorsusing State Board ofEducation-approvedproviders. Administratorsare trained in management,the use of technology, andeducating for literacy—all with the aim of improv-ing student achievement.

As of December 2002, more than 2,200 principals hadparticipated in this program.

In the 2002 legislative session, California also enacted a law allowing alternative paths to both thepreliminary (Tier 1) and professional clear (Tier 2)administrative credentials in an effort to address theshortage of administrative credential candidates. For a Tier 1 credential, candidates can now pass a test in-stead of having to complete a program of professionalpreparation or a one-year internship. For a Tier 2 cre-dential, candidates can either pass a national admin-istrator assessment or demonstrate mastery of theperformance standards and get a recommendationfrom an administrative-credentialing program. Theyno longer have to serve two years as an administratorand complete an advanced preparation program ifthey choose this new route to the clear credential.Critics of the new law have expressed concern that, while this new path to the credential might address the state’s administrator shortage, it may alsonegatively affect candidate quality.

School-level leadership was also on the minds of federal lawmakers who provided funds forstates to improve both teacher and administratorquality through NCLB’s Title II. In 2002–03 thisamounted to $400 million for California, though itis anticipated that most will go toward improvingteacher quality.

Improved school climate may lead to higherstudent achievementOne of the findings of effective-schools research isthat these schools provide a safe and orderly learningenvironment. Even if the environment does not sinkto the level of shootings or bomb scares, the extent towhich student learning is interrupted by routine disci-plinary problems or constrained by inadequate or un-safe classrooms serves to diminish learning to somedegree for all children. To the extent that these condi-tions are present in schools that serve high popula-tions of students in poverty, they can hurt thosestudents’ chances even further.

NCLB emphasizes the importance of a safe schoolenvironment and sets up a system for identifying un-safe schools. It also gives parents whose children attendschools deemed unsafe the opportunity to send themto other, safer public schools. California has a SchoolCrime Report program that also serves as a system foridentifying unsafe schools. However, the state is in themidst of revamping it to meet federal guidelines.

Adequate facilities are also seen as critical to apositive learning environment and in recent years,Californians have agreed to major investments to im-


Even if the

environment does

not sink to the

level of shootings

or bomb scares,

the extent to

which student

learning is

interrupted by

routine disciplinary

problems or

constrained by

inadequate or

unsafe classrooms

serves to diminish

learning.

21


prove facilities. In November 2002 voters passedProposition 47, a $13.05 billion general obligationbond that earmarked $11.4 billion for K–12 schools.The bond is in addition to substantial investment infacilities since 1998. A second measure, which will goon the ballot in 2004, would provide $10 billion morefor K–12 facilities.

In addition to adequate facilities, school size ap-pears to have an impact on student achievement,particularly that of the lowest-performing highschool students. Among the conclusions cited in a2001 report by WestEd, student achievement insmall schools is at least as high as that of students inlarge schools. Meanwhile, truancy, crime, and vio-lent and disruptive behavior are less prevalent, atten-dance rates are higher, and dropout rates are lower insmall schools. The research studies examined byWestEd found that disadvantaged students benefitthe most from being in smaller schools.

As is true elsewhere in the country, California hastended to create even larger schools rather than smallerones, particularly in the state’s metropolitan areas.Some heavily impacted high schools have support tocreate small school environments without having tocreate smaller schools. For example, they can partici-pate in the state’s Partnership Academies Program,which offers financial and technical assistance to de-velop these schools-within-a-school provided they meetcertain programmatic and financial requirements.

Private foundations are also taking an active roleto reduce school size by funding pilot projects in someCalifornia schools. Evaluations of these programs willfurther the knowledge of the impact school size hason student learning.

Decreasing school size is an intuitively appealingstrategy for improving student achievement. It is not asilver bullet, however. Along with more manageableschool size must come program effort and energyaround harnessing the benefits of being small. In otherwords, it is not just smallness but what smallness allowsthat is the key. In addition, there are many examples oflarge schools that succeed in spite of their size.

Market-based approaches and public scrutiny increase pressure to improve schools Market-based approaches to improving schools areperhaps one of the most controversial reforms sug-gested in recent years. The idea rests on the notionthat quality and innovation result when customersare free to choose between competing suppliers ofgoods and services. Nobel Prize-winning economist

Milton Friedman is proba-bly the most famous pro-ponent of the marketapproach in education. Asearly as 1962, he was advo-cating vouchers to “end thepublic school monopoly.”

Public school choice,vouchers, and charterschools are all adaptationsof a market-based approach.Supporters argue that givinga parent a wider range ofchoices within and outsideof the public school systemis not only consistent withdemocratic principles butcan potentially improvepublic education as parentsopt out of unsafe or aca-demically inferior schools.

As recently as 2000,Californians voted down aproposition that would havegiven educational vouchersto every school-age child tobe used at any public or pri-vate school in the state.However, other means ofpublic school choice aremore popular amongCalifornians. Each yearmany parents exercise theirright of intradistrict publicschool choice, or send theirchildren to one of the hun-dreds of charter or magnet schools around the state.

It is clear that when parents are given choices,many will take advantage of them if they believe thatmoving their children to other schools will securetheir safety and improve their educational opportu-nities. But some market-based approaches to improv-ing public schools—such as education vouchers andcharters—are relatively new to the education sceneand are often implemented very differently acrossdistricts and states. While researchers are activelystudying the impact of these approaches, it is still too early to know if they cause the public schoolsaround them to improve.

Currently charter schools provide the best oppor-tunity for studying such an impact in California. In2001–02 there were 351 charter schools in operation

Along with more

manageable school

size must come

program effort

and energy

around harnessing

the benefits

of being small.

In other words,

it is not just

smallness but

what smallness

allows that is

the key.

22

in the state, enrolling 133,151 children or about 2%of the students attending public schools. In the recentlegislative session, additional rules regarding charterschools were enacted, permitting more oversight bylocal districts. Charter schools, however, continue toenjoy more flexibility and freedom from state controlthan do regular public schools in California.

Policymakers create a public ranking systemSince 2000 nearly all of California’s public K–12schools have been included in the AcademicPerformance Index (API), a public ranking of schoolsbased on student performance on state tests. Each yearschools are expected to meet growth targets set by thestate for the general student population, as well as forsubgroups of students. The API thus helps state offi-cials know how well individual schools are doing ingeneral and in relation to the achievement gap. It alsoprovides the public with a tool for pressuring theirlocal schools to improve.

The API is not without its critics, however. Somehave expressed concern that because growth targetsfor subgroups are set at only 80% of the schoolwidegrowth target, the achievement gap will persist.

NCLB supports school choiceNCLB reinforces the pub-lic—and particularly par-ents’—capability to exertpressure on schools by giv-ing parents of students infailing schools the option to send their children else-where. According to thefederal legislation, a failingschool is a school that doesnot meet Adequate YearlyProgress, as defined by thestate. In addition, studentsattending persistently dan-gerous schools, as deter-mined by the state, alsoqualify for a school transfer.By law, the district mustallow students at theseschools to transfer to an-other and must providetransportation to the new school. The choicecomponents of NCLB pre-sent several challenges forCalifornia districts, includ-ing how to handle space

and transportation issues and complex resource re-allocations when students transfer to new schools.

Research and experience canpoint to new directionsAn extensive body of research documents the multi-ple factors associated with the achievement gap.Some of these are factors children bring with themto school, such as poverty, inadequate school readi-ness, minimal proficiency in the English language,and negative peer influences. It will take wider com-munity and family support to minimize their nega-tive effects on student achievement.

Other factors—such as how well a school is orga-nized and managed, how qualified its teachers and otherstaff are, what subject matter and curriculum they teach,and how high the expectations are for all students—are within local control, including that of district schoolboards, administrators, and union leaders.

If school district leaders are serious about addressinggaps in student achievement, they will take a hard lookat a wide range of policies and practices to ensure that, ata minimum, they do not put schools with the needieststudents at a disadvantage. All local policies and prac-tices would be reviewed in this light—including the allo-cation of private donations from community groups; thedistribution of locally-generated tax revenues from parceltax and general obligation bonds; and the effect of col-lective bargaining agreements on the equitable distribu-tion of qualified teachers across schools in a district.

Californians can take additional steps to addressthe student achievement gap. For one, the state—andits local educators—need better data about how K–12students are doing. In addition, policymaking must bebased upon high quality, clear, and definitive researchabout best practice. Perhaps more importantly, stateleaders need to sustain their financial investment inreform efforts in order to maximize their effectiveness.Sustaining the effort will be a formidable challengefor California given the state’s current fiscal health.

Better data and research are essential to improve policy and practiceCalifornia has enacted numerous education policies—based both on the best thinking in the field and onpopular trends—often with less than satisfactory orclear results. Making informed decisions about how tonarrow the achievement gap requires consistent, reli-able, and pertinent data and the skills to analyze it.Without this, it is impossible to evaluate programs in-tended to improve student performance. Through


Making informed

decisions about

how to narrow

the achievement

gap requires

consistent,

reliable, and

pertinent data

and the skills

to analyze it.

23


NCLB, federal policymakers are insisting on the use ofstudent performance data to evaluate the effectivenessof educational programs. A large portion of NCLBfunding will be tied to the state’s ability to demon-strate with data that federal funds have yielded posi-tive results in student academic performance.

Currently, however, California and many otherstates have woefully inadequate student informationsystems for doing so. For example, California does nothave the capability at the state level to track progress ofindividuals or groups of students as they move throughthe education system. Nor does it have the capacity toassess the impact that teachers or courses have had onstudents’ academic performance. Both are essential toevaluating the impact of policies and programs on tar-geted groups of students, i.e. those identified as lowerperforming. To respond to the new federal mandate,California put $7 million into the 2002–03 budget to create a longitudinal student performance database.This database will use the California School InformationServices (CSIS) unique student identifiers.

NCLB also places heavy emphasis on “scientifically-based” research and programs. The phrase, which ap-pears 110 times in the 2,000-page document, isprecisely defined in the legislation. It states, in part,that scientifically-based research “involves rigorous dataanalyses that are adequate to test the stated hypothesesand justify the general conclusions drawn.”

This NCLB focus has the potential to affect policy-making, encouraging programs and policies consistentwith the research and discouraging policies that are pop-ular politically but have not been widely proven to im-prove student academic achievement. With limitedfunds available for education, it is particularly importantthat they are well spent. Targeting them on those effortsthat research indicates are most likely to succeed is wisepolicy. Further, building rigorous evaluations into pro-grams will help inform policymakers and educators if theinvestments are working or if changes need to be made.The public is more likely to support these investments ifthey can see that they are done with intelligence and arehaving a positive, well-documented effect.

Financial hard times for Californiameans cutbacks for educationIn California any benefits of federal and state educa-tion reforms may be reduced or postponed until the fi-nancial picture in the state improves. According to theDepartment of Finance, California is facing an evenlarger revenue shortfall than the record-breakingdeficit in 2001–02. The governor and Legislature madesome tough budgetary cuts during an emergency ses-sion in February 2002 but managed to leave public ed-

ucation relatively untouchedfor the remainder of the lastfiscal year. This is not so for2002–03 with the governor’srecent proposal for morethan $2 billion in midyearbudget cuts for education.

California will thus be se-riously challenged to sustainits investment in public educa-tion reform generally, muchless invest more heavily in itsleast privileged and hardest-to-educate students. Finding thepolitical will to invest more inthese students has been an up-hill struggle in a boomingeconomy. If the pie getssmaller, doing so could meantaking resources from else-where in the school system.Yet it is clear that a sustainedeffort is what is needed. Instates like Texas, where someprogress has been madeagainst the achievement gap, ithas occurred only over a span of a decade or more, andthe effort has been sustained through good and bad eco-nomic times and through changes in political leadership.

California’s current education reforms and the fed-eral effort behind NCLB have the potential to dramat-ically change public education in California andpositively affect the performance of its disadvantagedchildren. But improving student achievement is a par-ticularly daunting challenge in California given thesize of its student population and the large percentageof poor and minority students in its classrooms.Sustaining a commitment to those children is anequally daunting political challenge given the diversityof the state, the often-polarized political climate, andthe extra burden of a severe budget crisis. It remains tobe seen how effective the new federal policies will bein forcing California to sustain its focus and furthertarget its efforts around achievement gap issues. Thepowerful leverage of large federal programs to quicklychange state policies and practices is well documented.However, the ability of public education to absorb evendramatic changes and essentially nullify their effects isequally well documented. Time—and a sharp and un-wavering focus on narrowing the achievement gap—will be required if the sweeping educational changesencompassed in the NCLB legislation and California’snew reforms are to have any lasting effect.

It is clear

that a sustained

effort is what

is needed...

through good

and bad economic

times and through

changes in

political leadership.

This report has been researched and written by:Linda Hertert, Ph.D. ,Education Consultant, andJackie Teague, EdSourceResearch Associate

With research support from:Leslie ArmstrongMary PerryBrian EdwardsAdam Pelavin

EdSource is a not-for-profit501(c)(3) organization established in California in 1977.

Independent and impartial,EdSource strives to ad-vance the common goodby developing and widelydistributing trustworthy,useful information thatclarifies complex K–12 education issues and pro-motes thoughtful decisionsabout California’s publicschool system.

To learn more about ourorganization, please contactEdSource to request: a pub-lications catalog, subscriptioninformation,or to be placedon our mailing list.

EdSource4151 Middlefield Road Suite 100 Palo Alto, CA 94303-4743650/857-9604 Fax: 650/857-9618

E-mail:[email protected] visit us on the web:www.edsource.org

For data about everyschool and district in California, visit theEducation DataPartnership:www.ed-data.k12.ca.us

© Copyright 2003 by EdSource, Inc.

To Learn MoreSelected Resources

2002–03 Budget: Education: ReformingCategorical Program Funding, and 2002–03 BudgetAct:The Challenge and the Solution. LegislativeAnalyst’s Office, 2002. www.lao.ca.gov

Add It Up: Using Research to Improve Education forLow-Income and Minority Students. Poverty andRace Research Action Council, 2001.www.prrac.org

Are Small Schools Better? School SizeConsiderations for Safety & Learning. McRobbie, J.WestEd, 2001. www.wested.org

At Home and in School: Racial and Ethnic Gaps inEducation Preparedness. Public Policy Institute ofCalifornia, 2001.www.ppic.org/publications/CalCounts2/calcounts.page.html

Beyond the Classroom:Why School Reform Has Failedand What Parents Need to Do. Steinberg, L., 1996.

The Black-White Test Score Gap. C. Jencks and M.Phillips, eds. Brookings Institution Press, 1998.www.brookings.edu

California Report Card: Children’s Critical EarlyYears. Children Now, 2002.www.childrennow.org

California's Teaching Force: Key Issues and Trends2002.The Center for the Future of Teaching andLearning, 2002. www.cftl.org/publications.html

Correlates of Effective Schools:The First and SecondGeneration. Lezotte, L.W. Effective Schools, 2002.And, Revolutionary and Evolutionary:The EffectiveSchools Movement. Lezotte, L. Effective Schools,2001. www.effectiveschools.com

A Decade of Whole-School Reform:The NewAmerican Schools Experience. RAND, 2002.www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB8019

Early Childhood Poverty: A Statistical Profile.National Center for Children in Poverty, March2002. www.nccp.org/ecp302.html

Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 onthe Education of English Learners, K–12:Year 2Report. Parrish,T.B., Quick, H.E., Laird, J., Esra, P.WestEd and American Institutes for Research,2002. www.wested.org

Entering Kindergarten: Findings from The Condition ofEducation 2000. National Center for EducationStatistics, #2001-035, 2001. http://nces.ed.gov

Equal Resources, Equal Outcomes? The Distributionof School Resources and Student Achievement in

California. Betts, J.R., Rueben, K., Danenberg,A.Public Policy Institute of California, 2000.www.ppic.org

For Better or Worse? School Finance Reform inCalifornia. Sonstelie, J., Brunner, E., Ardon, K.Public Policy Institute of California, 2000.www.ppic.org

Great Expectations: How the Public and Parents—White,African American, and Hispanic—ViewHigher Education. Public Agenda, May 2000.www.highereducation.org/reports/expectations/expectations.shtml

How to Best Achieve School Success.WestEd, 2002.www.wested.org

Improving Student Achievement:What State NAEPTest Scores Tell Us. Grissmer, D.W. RAND, 2000.www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR924

Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: ImprovingSchool Quality Through Principal ProfessionalDevelopment. National Staff DevelopmentCouncil, December 2000.www.nsdc.org/educatorindex.htm

School Finance and California’s Master Plan forEducation. Public Policy Institute of California.2001. www.ppic.org

The State of Health Insurance in California: Findingsfrom the 2001 California Health Interview Survey.UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, June2002. www.healthpolicy.ucla.edu

Systemic School Reform. Smith, M. S., O’Day, J. In:Politics of Curriculum and Testing, S. Fuhrman andB. Malen, eds. 1991.

Systemic School Reform. Smith, M.S., O’Day, J. In:Politics of Education Association Yearbook 1990.London:Taylor & Francis, Ltd., 1990.

Time to Move On: African-American and WhiteParents Set an Agenda for Public Schools. PublicAgenda, 1998. www.publicagenda.org

An Uneven Start: Indicators of Inequality in SchoolReadiness. Educational Testing Service, March2002. www.ets.org

What We Have Learned About Class SizeReduction. CSR Research Consortium, 2002.www.classize.org

For a complete bibliography and list of otherimportant resources, see EdSource Online:www.edsource.org/pub_abs_achgap.cfm

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