O’Connell targets achievement gap in annual address 

Noting both progress and a need for greater improvement in California’s education system, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell vowed in his annual State of Education speech last month that his primary goal in 2007 is to “focus as never before on finding ways to close the achievement gap.”

“Over the past four years, well over half a million additional California students have become proficient or above in English language arts and math,” O’Connell said in his fourth annual appraisal of the state’s education system.

But while statewide assessment test scores have improved, O’Connell pointed out that the overall gap in academic accomplishment has not narrowed between the highest-achieving subgroups, consisting of Asians and whites, and the lowest-achieving groups, consisting of Hispanics and blacks. He said that many factors affect individual student performance, from learning disabilities and language barriers to poverty and other conditions.

Falling into the gap

O’Connell illustrated the challenges posed by California’s diversity with a statistical profile of a hypothetical fourth-grade classroom of 32 students. If the demographics of the state’s 6.3 million public school students matched that classroom, O’Connell noted, 16 of the 32 children would be Hispanic; nine would be white, three Asian and three black, and one would be Filipino. Half of the 32 would come from impoverished households; three would have special education needs and 13—40 percent—would speak languages other than English at home.

O’Connell went further, imagining the futures of these children.

“If the child is white, Asian or Filipino,” he said, “the chances of that child being academically successful are better than two in three. But the statistical chances of success for the 19 students sitting right next to them who are Hispanic or African American? Only slightly better than one in three.

“If graduation rates are not improved, odds are that of the 16 Hispanic students, six will not graduate. And while statistics tell us that the Filipino and nearly all of the Asian American students will graduate, two of the nine white students will not, and one in three African Americans will not.

“Multiple challenges,” O’Connell concluded, “demand multiple strategies.”

The state schools chief said he will meet with local school leaders to research and define “all the achievement gaps that exist” and take steps to eliminate them.

Other issues

O’Connell began his tradition of annual speeches assessing the state of California’s public schools in 2004, looking back then on his first full year as the state’s elected superintendent of education. Elected to his second term last June, O’Connell used this year’s talk to address a broad range of issues.

Among them:

California High School Exit Exam: O’Connell credited the exit exam, which students were required to pass as a condition of high school graduation for the first time last year, with raising students’ own expectations. “The bottom line is that the high school exit exam is not a test to hold students back—it’s a vehicle for moving students forward,” O’Connell said. As a result, “students are working harder, learning more and persevering in school,” with 56 percent more students taking advanced placement courses than in 2001.

CalPADS: O’Connell urged the governor and the Legislature to include $32 million in the budget to “fully implement” the California Pupil Achievement Data System that requires school districts to submit demographic information linked to specific student identifiers each year during the October census. “This system will at long last provide a clearer picture of dropout and retention rates and a clearer assessment of what’s working to help students succeed,” he said.

Career and technical education: O’Connell expressed pride at the job his department has done in developing career-related courses that meet college admission requirements. Only 340 such courses qualified four years ago; today that number surpasses 4,700. He said he plans to develop more career-related math, science and English courses to add to the total.

Absent from O’Connell’s speech was any mention of the much-anticipated, $2.6-million research project composed of more than 20 studies designed to provide California’s policy-makers with the comprehensive information they need to raise student achievement and position the state as an education leader. The studies, coordinated by Stanford University, were issued to senior government officials in late January and are expected to be released to the public sometime this month.