California education system in dire shape, must improve
By Avni Nijhawan
March 15, 2010 10:58 p.m.
California just missed out on $700 million.
The state lost in the first round of President Obama’s Race to the Top grant competition, a program that will distribute $4.35 billion to states which demonstrate commitment to secondary education reform. The competition is two rounds long, which means California will have another chance, and winners will be the states which score the highest on a 500-point scale.
California’s failure to make the cut speaks to the need for dramatic reform in the state’s many failing school districts. Los Angeles Unified School District, for example, is the second-largest district in the country and yet had a 26.4 percent dropout rate during the 2007-2008 school year ““ the second worst rate for a district of its size in California.
One aim of the Race to the Top program is to enact high universal classroom standards.
“A low-income, middle school student in San Antonio should not be held to a lower standard in algebra than a middle school student in Shaker Heights ““ or Shanghai,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a U.S. Department of Education press release.
I couldn’t agree more. A particularly embarrassing indicator of California’s low standards and performance is the California High School Exit Examination. Students need only score 55 percent on an eighth-grade-level math portion and 60 percent on a ninth- or 10th-grade level English portion in order to pass. Shockingly, this was actually an improvement in standards ““ even this basic exam left 42,000 seniors, who would have otherwise graduated, without a diploma.
Somehow, I doubt these are the kinds of math standards in Shanghai. Low standards inevitably increase high school graduation rates, something California is desperate to do with its 68 percent rate, but schools must think twice before giving out diplomas to students who barely know middle school math.
Thankfully, states are now making a joint effort to create new national standards for secondary education. Last week, 48 states collaborated in an effort to ameliorate the situation through the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a document that not only acknowledges higher math standards in other parts of the world ““ such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korea ““ but also seeks to emulate them.
Moreover, the new standards value the importance of higher education and specifically prepare students for careers in science, technology, engineering and math.
“The high school standards specify the mathematics that all students should learn in order to be college and career ready,” the initiative states.
Whether states adopt these standards is another matter. According to The New York Times, California is among the states which have “complicated procedures, involving the state board of education and other bodies that could prolong the process for a year or more.” But if California does adopt the standards, it will gain an additional 40 points in the Race to the Top competition.
As jobs become increasingly limited, education standards must be raised if schools hope to produce competitive candidates in the job market. With today’s deteriorating standards, graduating from high school in America is no longer the achievement it once was. Until standards improve (i.e. until exams such as the CAHSEE actually test high school-level material), students and teachers alike cannot consider high school graduation an acceptable end goal. And for those who do wish to continue with higher education, poor standards leave them utterly unprepared for rigorous college classes.
While teachers are obligated to teach to a test, they should certainly not restrict themselves to this oversimplified exam. Since teachers are the first and best line of defense against high dropout rates, standards of tests and teaching should be raised simultaneously. The Race to the Top competition favors states that provide incentives for excellent teachers and improve or replace lousy ones. These teachers are the ones who can best gauge what their students are lacking and they’re the ones who have the power to enlighten them. Teachers shouldn’t just hold their students to pitiful state standards ““ they should push students to surpass the standards.
I found a startling acceptance of low standards this past weekend when I participated in a volunteer program called “Reading to Kids” at Los Angeles Elementary School. I was assigned a fourth-grade classroom, but an organizer told me that the book I would be reading was about two to three years behind typical reading standards. “First- or second-graders should be reading this book,” she said. If schools are years behind already low standards as early as elementary school, how can they ever expect to produce students who are prepared to pass high school, much less go to college? Reform can no longer be done in baby steps; it must, as the Race to the Top program and CCSSI push, be bold.
California will be a far better contender in the Race to the Top program if it demonstrates first and foremost a commitment to high standards. While the state is desperate for more funding, it should be willing to make big changes if it hopes to create generations of successful and educated people.
Taking a stand on standards? E-mail nijhawan at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected]
