OAKLAND, CA (January 12, 2012) – Today, The Education Trust—West releases the findings of a two- year-long study of data from the second largest school district in the nation, revealing profound inequities in access to effective teaching.  In Learning Denied: The Case for Equitable Access to Effective Teaching in California’s Largest School District, The Education Trust—West finds that low-income students and students of color in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) are less likely to be taught by the district’s top teachers – the very teachers capable of closing the district’s achievement gaps. These inequities are exacerbated by teacher mobility patterns and quality-blind layoffs.

“This is one of the largest and most comprehensive analyses of this type ever completed, accounting for over 17,500 teachers and more than a million students,” said report co-author Carrie Hahnel, Director of Policy and Research at The Education Trust—West. “We were able to quantify the impact of effective teachers on student learning. We looked at the extent to which students of color and students in poverty had access to effective teachers, and we also looked at the impact of quality-blind teacher layoffs.”

The report reveals that:

• Teachers have the potential to dramatically accelerate the learning of their students – with the average student taught by a top 25% teacher (top quartile in terms of value-added) gaining half a year more of learning in English-Language Arts and four months in math than a student placed with a teacher in the bottom 25% (bottom quartile).
• Second-graders who started off behind academically and then had three top quartile teachers accelerated to academic proficiency, while students with consecutive bottom quartile  teachers remained stuck below grade level.
• Commonly used measures of teacher quality, such as years of experience, are poor predictors of effectiveness in the classroom. While teachers do improve over time, the differences among teachers are far greater than those between teachers at different levels of experience.  For example, the difference between a 10th-year teacher and first-year teacher is only about three and a half weeks in ELA and two and a half weeks in math.
• Effective teachers are inequitably distributed in LAUSD with Latino, African-American and low-income students much less likely to have access to top-quartile teachers. In addition, these top teachers are more likely to leave the district’s highest need schools.
• Quality-blind teacher layoffs in 2009 resulted in the removal of high value-added teachers from the highest need schools. If the district had instead laid off teachers based on effectiveness, only about 5 percent of the ELA teachers and 3 percent of the math teachers actually cut by LAUSD would have been laid off.

The report reveals that a low-income student is more than twice as likely to have a low value-added ELA teacher as a higher income peer, and 66 percent more likely to have a low-value added math teacher.  Latino and African-American students are two to three times more likely to have bottom-quartile teachers in math and ELA, respectively, than their white and Asian peers.

According to the report, state and local policies can prevent students from accessing the most effective teachers or cause students to lose access to these teachers. The report recommends that district and state leaders invest in high-quality evaluation systems to identify effective teachers and those who are failing to improve student performance. It calls for developing programs and policies that attract and retain the best teachers in the highest need schools, offering teachers the high-quality professional development that leads to gains in student achievement, and fundamentally reforming state policies that prevent local leaders from making decisions in the best interests of students. This includes ending once and for all quality-blind, “last in, first out” (LIFO) teacher layoffs.

The goal of California GEAR UP is to develop and sustain the organizational capacity of middle schools to prepare all students for high school and higher education through a statewide network of support for adults who influence middle school students, specifically their counselors, faculty, school leaders and families.  As a result of this expanded capacity, a higher proportion of students, particularly from backgrounds and communities that have not historically pursued a college education, will enroll and succeed in higher education.

To read the full report, click through to the Ed Trust West website HERE.

The Education Trust—West, a California GEAR UP Partner, works for the high academic achievement of all students at all levels, pre-k through college. They expose opportunity and achievement gaps that separate students of color and low-income students from other youth, and identify and advocate for the strategies that will forever close those gaps.

The California Governor’s new budget slashes education across the board, including K-12 and higher education. Despite the dire economic situation in California, educators and voters alike were hoping to restore funding to their needed levels.

Dr. Arun Ramanathan, executive director of The Education Trust—West, issued the following statement regarding the release of Governor Brown’s proposed budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year:

“The proposed budget by Governor Brown identifies painful cuts in education. These could be worse without legislative action and public approval of a potential proposition to extend tax increases – both of which have been difficult to secure in the past.”

“We are deeply concerned about the cuts to education and the potential for deeper cuts. Over the past three years, our state’s budget has been balanced on the backs of our children.  These cuts have disproportionally impacted students of color and students in poverty by increasing class sizes, cutting summer school and eliminating intervention programs that support student learning in districts across California.  For far too long, our education decisions have been made based on adult interests, not the needs of students.” READ MORE HERE.

Brown proposes spending $63.8 billion for K-12 schools next year, down $2.6 billion from this year’s budget, with much of the difference coming from the loss of federal stimulus money. The governor said state funding of schools is “generally even” next year compared with this year because schools have borne the brunt of past spending reductions.

However, some $2 billion of the school money would disappear if voters do not approve an extension of existing taxes in a ballot measure this summer.

The reduction in the education budget alarmed Marty Hittelman, president of the California Federation of Teachers.

“The proposed state budget continues to threaten the future of California by reducing our investment in public education and the students who will lead our state in the coming years,” Hittelman said, adding that the proposed new cuts in education would come on top of $18 billion in school-funding decreases over the last three years.

Brown proposed to reduce funding for the University of California and California State University systems by $500 million each, which he said was “a very difficult cut.”

For Cal State the reduction represents an 18% cut in funding from the state general fund, according to CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed, who predicted it will “have serious impacts on the state’s economy, limit access for students seeking entrance into our universities, and restrict classes and services for our current students.”

UC President Mark G. Yudof called it “a sad day for California” but said “the university will stand up and do all it can to help the state through what is a fiscal, structural and political crisis.”

The proposed budget will also be painful for community college students, who would see their fees climb from $26 per credit unit to $36.

What do you think about the governor’s budget?

The Education Trust-West released the first Equity Alert which highlights California’s recent statewide API rankings which expose an “all-too familiar” achievement gap. The 2009 Annual Performance Index unveil that race and class continue to play a material role in shaping opportunity in our schools and the inequity is systemic and pervasive. Findings include:

• 39 percent of African-American students attend the state’s bottom 30 percent of schools. 44 percent of Latinos and 45 percent of economically disadvantaged students are concentrated in the bottom 30 percent of schools.
• By contrast, 54 percent of white students attend the top 30 percent of schools and only 9 percent attend the bottom 30 percent schools.
• Economically disadvantaged students represent 54 percent of California’s school-age population, but they make up 83 percent of students in decile 1-3 schools.

The Equity Alert outlines actions state policymakers and education leaders can take to address these patterns of inequity. These actions include:

• implementing policies to identify, recruit and retain highly-effective teachers and principals;
• ensuring that high-need students have access to the supports and interventions they need from the earliest grades;
• providing additional resources to the state’s lowest performing schools in exchange for greater accountability.

We have our work cut out for us. The indicators of what is missing and what is needed are consistently repeated in all of the current research. Our efforts in these struggling school communities often provide the catalyst and the will to address pervasive achievement, resources, and opportunity gaps.

-Shelley Davis, Director, California GEAR UP

We know by bridging research like this with with successful practice already going on in our schools, the achievement gap can be systematically addressed. The questions remain: why aren’t we leveraging every resource to address these issues? What successes can we celebrate and duplicate?