California Cramming

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California students only managed to demonstrate minimal gains in English and made no significant progress in Math on academic achievement tests, according to the data released recently by the California Department of Education, as the Education Trust-West relayed.

Moreover, there remains a wide disparity in education between low-income, Latino and African-American students compared to White and Asian students who always manage to achieve higher gains on Annual Standardized Tests. In fact, test results revealed “that far too many of California’s young people struggle to reach grade level expectations in Math and Language Arts, and disturbingly, the percentage of students that still have not been taught even to the basic levels, remains high,” as the Education Trust puts it.

In a broader depiction of California’s student performance levels, the Education Trust report revealed that “since 2003, the percentage of 4th graders reaching proficient and above in Math and English has improved more than any other grade or content area.” Nevertheless, the data showed, “gaps in achievement between low-income students, and students of color and their advantaged peers have closed at an appalling slow rate,” the Education Trust concludes. Meaning, “At best, these disparities narrow at a rate of slightly less than one point each year,” the Education Trust report concludes. In contrast to elementary grades, “8th grade students demonstrated substantially lower rates of proficiency in both Math and English, and at the same time, the gaps in achievement persist, and in some cases, actually widen,” according to the data released by the Education Trust.

In terms of ELA, data showed, “More students reached proficiency in English Language Arts (ELA) portion of the CSTs in 2008 than in previous years, especially in California’s elementary schools,” as the Education Trust reports. However, the study also showed, “In English, gaps are more pronounced.” In fact, the data revealed, “slightly more than
40 percent of Latino and African-American students reach grade level proficiency in English, compared to more than 75 percent of California’s White and Asian 4th graders, while low-income 4th graders perform at Below and Far Below Basic levels at over three times the rate of their more affluent peers,” as the Education Trust points out.

Alarmingly, the California 2008 Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) revealed that, in terms of learning progression in English- Language Arts, “gaps are narrowing at even a slower rate: The achievement gaps between African-Americans and White students closed by one point; three points between Latino and Whites; and by two points between low-income students and their affluent peers,” as the Education Trust reports.

In terms of Math progression, the data revealed, “California’s 4th graders demonstrated Math proficiency gains of five percentage points between 2007 and 2008. And, “over the last six years, the percentage of students taking Algebra in 8th grade has grown substantially, up from a third in 2003 to more than half in 2008. This year, of those 8th graders taking Algebra I, a full 42 percent are performing at proficient or above grade level,” as the Education Trust found. Nevertheless, “despite this moderate improvement, large gaps in achievement persisted.” In other words, proficiency results revealed, “both the pace of improvement, and overall achievement level itself declines as students progress through the school system: 8th grade performance level being lower than 4th grade performance, and 11th grade performance lower still,” according to the data released by the Education Trust.

Further, data showed mathematic scores greatly mirrored the trend of 4th , 8th, and 11th grade performance levels. Surprisingly, the test also revealed that “students demonstrate greater improvement and higher achievement in early grades, but by secondary school progress comes a halt: the results are most especially dramatic in Geometry and Algebra II, the only assessed areas where student performances declined,” according to the data released by the Education Trust regarding California’s STAR results. Nevertheless, the study did show that “in Math, the disparities in achievement between African-American and Latino students, and their White peers have narrowed by 5 percentage points over the last six years.” Subsequently, the study also revealed that the “gap between low-income students and their more affluent peers narrowed by four percentage points during the same time period,” as the Education Trust found.

In respect to ethnicity, “less than half Latino and African-American students performed at grade level, compared to more than 75 percent of White and Asian students.” Meaning, “Latino and African-American students are three times more likely to perform at the Below and Far Below Basic levels than their White and Asian counterparts,” according to the Education Trust findings.

So now, what does the future hold for California and its students? For the most part, California school officials remain optimistic about improving student performance levels, especially among their most troubled students: low-income, African-American and Latino students. Also, the 2008 Standardized Test mirrored some improvement in student performance levels, indicating that students were progressing closer towards their expected grade-level proficiency. However, school officials reluctantly admitted that they still have a long way to go.

Irene Warren is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run jointly by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.