The Under-Education of Latinos in California

By Sonia Hernandéz

In its recently released publication, Student Achievement in California 1990-2000, the Los Angeles Alliance for Student Achievement chronicles a decade of a state K-12 school system in turmoil and incapable of educating the vast majority of Latinos in California.

Latino Student Achievement Only 23% of Latino students scored at or above 50th percentile on the state achievement test in reading compared to 62% of White students in 2000.

Among English learners, 80% of whom are Latino students, the scores were even lower, especially in grades 6 through 11. This trend held true in reading and mathematics as measured by the SAT9 state test over the last three years.

In mathematics, 33% of Latino students scored at or above the 50th percentile while their Asian counterparts ranked at 74%.

Factors in Student Achievement Clearly, the achievement gaps are persisting even though the overall student population has made modest gains in test scores.

But the gains for English learners, poor children, and special education students has been substantially less than for all other groups of students, as reported by the California Department of Education. At the current rate of progress, it will be de decades before Latino students receive the quality education needed to enter four-year colleges and universities in adequate numbers representative of the growing population.

Landmark studies such as the Coleman Report in the 1960’s point to the negative effects of factors including poverty, education level of parents, inadequate health care, etc. It must be noted that while this indicators make educating children more difficult, they are not ultimate predictors of school failure. The main factors that impact student achievement are (1) qualified teachers, and (2) rigorous curriculum.

Qualified Teachers
The number of teachers on emergency certificates in California is growing by the tens of thousands each year. While not all certified teachers can characterized as unqualified, it is important to note that the large majority of such teachers are found in urban schools (20%) as compared to suburban schools (9%). Students with the greatest needs, those achieving at the lowest quartile on the SAT9 Test, have the highest percentage of under-qualified teachers (23%) as compared to the highest achieving students (15%). Poor children are assigned the least qualified teachers (22%) as compared to more economically affluent students (6%). Schools with large proportions of minority students are assigned under-qualified teachers (27%) while predominately White schools have fewer the 4% of their teaching staff on emergency credentials.

Excellent teachers make a difference in education of all children but especially for students facing many challenges, both inside and outside of the school environment.

It is the responsibility of the State of California to ensure that every child has access to qualified teachers.

 A Rigorous Curriculum
In a recent survey of parents in Los Angeles, the Alliance reported the while more than 80% of Latino parents expected their students to go to college after graduating from high school, fewer than 30% of Latino high school graduates had taken the courses required to enter the Cal System or the University of California system.

Statewide, almost 60% of Asian high school graduates leave with the necessary courses for college eligibility (A-G requirements) while less than 22% of Latino students graduate as college eligible.

In fact, Latino students are least likely of all students to be enrolled in algebra, chemistry, or physics classes in high school. Although Latino students represent 42% of the k-12 students population, only 16% of students identified as gifted and talented are Latinos.

The Future of California Latinos If Latinos are to be full participants in the future of California, greater attention must be paid to the current under-education of the student education of the student population. High school graduation rates continue to decrease, college attendance is below the national average, and Latinos have the lowest percentage of bachelor’s degree of any group in the state.

Although modest gains hold some promise for changing the negative trends of the past decade, quantum leaps in student achievement can be made if the state focuses on who is teaching and what is taught in classrooms through California. Only then will the decades of under-education of Latinos finally end.