March 26, 1999
Education in the state of California is confronting massive efforts to change the way it educates. Key terms associated with these changes are derived from `business models'. The thrust appears to be to change the educational system from one developed and devised by educational professionals to one developed by business organizations/groups and individuals using their occupational models.
The teaming up of influential businessmen and corporations with elected political officials, whose reelections depend on their financial generosity, has created a power block of non-education professionals in the field of education. They are now attempting to impose unverified, untried, untested educational ideas and programs upon the California Public School System and placing at risk generations of our school children. (I am sure General Motors would not take kindly to one of our Editors going in and telling them how to make automobiles.)
One of their ideas supported by our "ever trying to please the money boys" politicians is the concept of "End Result Testing" of students. On this one indicator they would grade teachers, administrators, individual schools and determine whether the student had achieved an unquantifiable level of achievement. Test will be given from the 1st grade through the 12th grade to ensure that the students are learning. Teachers and administrators would be held accountable for those students who are not succeeding. Accountability is a very big word in all of the talk about the new education. Of course the validation of the quantifiable measures have not yet been identified. (It is easy to test whether a bumper is going to survive a 40 MPH crash) What perimeters are being used to determine whether Johnny is educated at the 2,3,6, 9th grade level?).
Dear to the heart of La Prensa San Diego is how all of this impacts on the Hispanic/Minority students? We can not say how the state's new testing program will impact the Hispanic community. (This is a work in progress, we are told and it will take 5-10 years to gage the results). But, we can take a look at other states and other tests to see the impact that they have had on the Hispanic and other minorities.
Probably one of the more telling gages of testing is the SAT test. SAT originally stood for `Scholastic Aptitude Test', then it stood for "Student Achievement Test', today the initials do not stand for anything at all. The one thing that SAT does stand for is "racial bias." For example in 1997 SAT tests, out of a possible combined score of 1600 (for verbal and math portions together), the average score for Mexican Americans was 909 and for whites 1052 - a difference of 143 points. For African Americans the results are even worst. SATs are the primary gauge by which colleges use to determine who is accepted into college, and in this post-Prop. 227 era SATs have taken on even more significance.
In our second example of testing failing the Hispanic student we can look to Texas and see the impact a relatively new test has impacted upon the Hispanic student. In 1990-91 Texas implemented the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). Yet, after eight years in which to evaluate, a suit was brought last year by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) stating that: "The TAAS passage rates of Mexican American and African American first-time test takers are significantly lower than those of white students."
The complaint goes on to state that although Mexican Americans and African Americans make up approximately 40% of all Texas seniors, they represent 85% of the 7,650 students who fail the final administration of the TAAS each year.
Now, according to our elected officials, California will step forth and jump into these uncharted waters. Following Texas' example, statewide testing will be conducted to determine the success of the educational system. Based on the results of these "End Result Testing" scores California schools will be graded, on an unknown gradient scale, and those schools meeting performance goals will be rewarded and those failing will receive assistance and if they continue to fail the school will be re-staffed or closed.
This means that schools that are already doing well will continue to do well and will be rewarded. This is supported by a recent report "Measuring the Achievement Gap in San Diego City Schools", by Hugh Mean of UCSD, in which he bases his report on the fact that those schools in the more affluent areas perform twice as well as those schools in high poverty areas.
In today's world, education is no longer just taking the children in and teaching the ABCs and the three Rs. If you are a teacher in an economically disadvantaged area of the community, you are dealing with students who carry a heavy load of baggage occasioned by 200 years of economic oppression, political disenfranchisement, and societal disengagement brought about by racism and discrimination. As it has been recently describe the schools in the less affluent areas of town are becoming the social service centers for the community.
While "End Product Results work nicely for factory work, where you are dealing with inanimate objects and not live human beings, in dealing with children one must contend with child-specific variables each different then the other. A test that judges for reading, writing, and math, does very little for the child that excels in the dance, art or music. The same is true when you use one test to test both the affluent and the less affluent, the outcome, on a whole, is predetermined.
This is not to say that testing should be done away with. Testing is a necessity, but there needs to be more than just a straight "End Result Testing" to determine passing or failing, whether a students receives a diploma of graduation, or a certificate of attendance, there needs to be more than a test to determine college entrance. The educational system needs to be able to judge progress. A student who enters second grade, who lacks certain skills, leaves that grade with a fundamental sound basis to learn, is not a failure. He has improved and he needs to know this.
If "what is good for General Motors is good for the country" we wouldn't accept the glut of General Motor cars that pollute our environment and are the largest killers of people. Probably more than anything else we need to remove politics from the education of our children. They may even have a worst track record then the business community in knowing how to educate our children.
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