SCHOOL MATTERS: California STAR Results Show Achievement Gap Persists - NAM:
"What is clear is the racial and socioeconomic achievement gap hasn’t shrunk substantially.
'The gap is getting bigger and bigger,' said Linda Murray, acting executive director of Ed Trust West and former superintendent of San Jose Unified School District from 1993-2004. 'Poor students and students of color attend schools where teachers are less experienced, classrooms are under-resourced, and academic expectations are lower. These students are taught less, so they under-perform.'
The proportion of white 8th graders who achieved proficiency was 32 percentage points higher than Latino and African American 8th graders, according to a 2009 STAR program report released by Education-Trust West.
With some 1.6 billion proposed budget cuts to California education, high-level academic achievement is only going to become more of a challenge for low-income and minority students who attend under-funded schools.
'The devastation of funding cuts is very real,' said Murray. 'Class sizes are going up, resources are dwindling, teacher quality will suffer; there are kinds of ramifications of the cuts which will hurt kids attending under-resourced schools the most.'"
"What is clear is the racial and socioeconomic achievement gap hasn’t shrunk substantially.
'The gap is getting bigger and bigger,' said Linda Murray, acting executive director of Ed Trust West and former superintendent of San Jose Unified School District from 1993-2004. 'Poor students and students of color attend schools where teachers are less experienced, classrooms are under-resourced, and academic expectations are lower. These students are taught less, so they under-perform.'
The proportion of white 8th graders who achieved proficiency was 32 percentage points higher than Latino and African American 8th graders, according to a 2009 STAR program report released by Education-Trust West.
With some 1.6 billion proposed budget cuts to California education, high-level academic achievement is only going to become more of a challenge for low-income and minority students who attend under-funded schools.
'The devastation of funding cuts is very real,' said Murray. 'Class sizes are going up, resources are dwindling, teacher quality will suffer; there are kinds of ramifications of the cuts which will hurt kids attending under-resourced schools the most.'"
