O’Connell intensifies focus on closing achievement gap

23 January 2008 - State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell has outlined a broad and ambitious agenda to improve educational opportunities for black and Hispanic students—one he said can be implemented with little or no additional new state funds.

Delivering his annual State of Education address to a packed auditorium in Sacramento, O’Connell said he will continue to push educators to address difficult issues of race and culture and to examine teaching practices and approaches to California’s diverse student population. The superintendent, who has made closing the achievement gap his top priority, hosted a two-day conference last fall that focused on educating students of color. O’Connell said the “truly remarkable gathering” drew 4,000 participants from 52 counties.

In the past, gaps in student achievement have been framed mainly as a problem relating to class and family income. But recent research has found that race is a more reliable indicator of achievement: Poor white students consistently outperform middle- and upper-class blacks and Hispanics.

“Clearly it’s time to move past the discomfort of talking about culture and race,” O’Connell said. “It’s time to move past the harmful illusion that we live in a colorblind society. Whether we know it or not, an attempt to be colorblind can feel to a student of color like a rejection of that student’s culture and experience.”

The gap between generally higher-achieving white and Asian students and their black and Hispanic peers is a national problem, but the problem is especially significant in the nation’s most diverse state, O’Connell noted.

“In California, the students representing the achievement gap are the majority of our school population,” O’Connell said. “In California, closing the gap is more critical than anywhere else in this nation, and it is the way to help all students succeed.”

P-16 Council’s reform strategies

O’Connell based many of his recommendations on his California P-16 Council’s new report, “Closing the Achievement Gap.” The 90-page report, which examines disparities in access to quality teaching and curriculum, varying school cultures and climates, and expectations and strategies for improving those conditions, was distributed at O’Connell’s speech.

CSBA Executive Director Scott P. Plotkin, who serves on the P-16 Council, applauded O’Connell’s recommendations.

“Superintendent O'Connell’s State of Education address laid out the agenda for the public schools that we had hoped to see when 2008 was billed as ‘The Year of Education,’ ” Plotkin said. “ I hope that it becomes the blueprint for moving forward as the governor and Legislature consider how to provide adequate funding for schools in this difficult budget year.”

O’Connell acknowledged in his speech that the state is in “dire fiscal shape” and said most of his recommendations will require little or no new state funds. However, he said, he will fight to ensure that schools get the “minimum funding level that they clearly deserve” and to push for an increased investment in public education in the future. O’Connell cited a recent Education Week study showing that California spends almost $1,900 less per pupil than the national average, $5,100 less per pupil than New York, $4,000 less than Wyoming and $1,500 less than Louisiana.

“We can do better,” O’Connell said. “We must do better.”

O’Connell recommended a range of reforms for the coming year, including forging partnerships and consolidating and improving state preschool programs. Specifically, he called for:

· Developing an accountability system that measures schools’ progress closing the achievement gap

· Consolidating state preschool programs and evaluating them using the state’s new “Preschool Foundations”

· Initiating a partnership between K-12 schools, community colleges, public higher education, business and private colleges and universities in the American Diploma Project to ensure that high school graduates are prepared for college or work

· Using a $2 million grant from the Gates and Hewlett foundations to further state progress on developing a student data system that will guide future reforms

· Evaluating racial and cultural climates in K-12 schools through California Healthy Kids surveys and other instruments

O’Connell also announced that he will ask the state Board of Education to approve a pilot project that would give Long Beach and Fresno unified school districts additional flexibility to spend state funds on innovative reforms so long as they meet specific achievement targets. The two districts, the third and fourth largest in the state, also agreed to form a partnership to develop effective practices that can be replicated in districts throughout the state.

Related link: Find the text and a podcast of O’Connell’s State of the State address @ www.cde.ca.gov/eo/in/se/yr08soe.asp.