Fulfilling the commitment: excellence for all students: our ability to meet the needs of students of color, the poor and English learners will determine both their individual economic prospects and California's overall economic strength.

If present conditions are the best predictors of future success, students of diverse backgrounds are in deep trouble. By any recognizable measure of success, the state's educational system is not meeting the needs of students of color, the poor or English learners.

Both the California High School Exit Exam and No Child Left Behind demand that we prepare all students at higher levels than ever before. Beyond that, as educational leaders, we have to be concerned with enacting educational policies and practices that guarantee that every student we serve succeeds in and beyond school. In California, this responsibility has been articulated as a commitment to:

* Eliminate the persistent achievement and access gaps between white students and students of color, affluent students and poor students, and English learners and native English speakers.

* Accelerate and sustain academic progress through grade 12 and beyond for all students achieving at less than proficient levels.

* Ensure every student attains high and meaningful standards across the curriculum, resulting in full preparation for the option of entering the university system after high school graduation.

* Mobilize our resources to successfully prepare every student for the 21st century.

At minimum, this means students must pass the CAHSEE. Yet, results show we are struggling to achieve this minimal goal. For English learners, students of color, poor students and special education students, the statistics are grim, whether we're talking about English language arts or mathematics, where ostensibly, language is not an issue.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell recently said, "I remain troubled by the persistence of the achievement gap among several of our subgroups." (CDE Press Release, August 2006).

What does this mean in California, where ethnic minority students make up a significant portion of the enrollment? It means we cannot achieve excellence in education unless we achieve excellence for these students as well. The same applies to language minority students.

Today, over a third of the nation's English language learners attend school in California, where they comprise more than a quarter of all our students. Short term, our ability to successfully educate these students will determine whether they are able to graduate. Ultimately, in real-world terms, our ability to develop these students as "college-ready" individuals will determine both their individual economic prospects and California's overall economic strength. Even without taking the High School Exit Exam into account, we're already in trouble.

Today, one million 18- to 24-year-old Californians, about 30 percent of this age group, do not have a high school diploma. We know there's a close association between education and employment. High school dropouts are four times more likely than college graduates to be unemployed. Even when employed, high school dropouts earn only 70 percent of what graduates earn.

Regarding high school graduation rates, California ranks 45th among the 50 states. According to the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (2000), in California, for every 100 students who enter ninth grade, only 70 graduate from high school in four years, only 37 enter college, only 25 are still enrolled in college after their sophomore year, and only 19 earn a degree within six years of entering college.

These patterns disproportionately impact low-income people, communities of color, English learners and immigrants. As several studies have demonstrated, race, class, language and immigrant status characterize our state's pronounced graduation gap. According to the Urban Institute, while 78 percent of white students graduate from high school, only 60 percent of Latinos, 57 percent of African Americans and 53 percent of Native Americans graduate.

As reported in a recent study by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, fewer than two-thirds of all students graduated from high schools in central city districts and in communities that suffer from high levels of racial and socioeconomic segregation. Of the English learners who reach high school, only an estimated 27 percent graduate.

Trends of inequitable access and achievement extend beyond the K-12 system. According to a recent Institute of Higher Education Leadership and Policy Report, among California's 18- to 24-year-olds, 60 percent of Asian and Pacific Islanders and 43 percent of whites are enrolled in college, while only 32 percent of African Americans and 22 percent of Latinos are enrolled.

Because the young people who are least well-served by our education system are also the fastest growing segment of this age population, without immediate and sustained leadership this crisis can only worsen. There is no more pressing call for leadership than this.

The moral imperative to lead

Educators are optimists, and we like to believe that our efforts are helping students succeed. While that is true for many students, judging by the unacceptably high number of tragic results, California has a long way to go before we can claim to be successfully educating all students.

In part, the responsibility of leadership is to understand why we are getting the results we're getting. This understanding is necessary to make reasonable and strategic decisions with the power to actually achieve different results that are more closely aligned to our vision of success for the students we serve.

We're getting the results we're getting because we have a system in place that is structured to repeat certain differential patterns of behavior vis-a-vis the various groups of students we serve. These patterns include differential access to opportunities to learn, to qualified and experienced teachers, to best instructional practices and to aligned and valid assessments.

Opportunity to learn

Groups of students are routinely denied access to the academic courses that lead to high levels of achievement. With regard to English learners in California, fewer than 10 percent receive academic instruction in the language they understand to do the demanding academic work called for by state standards.

At the secondary level, English learners are often assigned to multiple periods of ESL classes, while other students are taking a full complement of academic courses. Commonly, when not enough courses are available in either SDAIE or other formats, students are given shortened day schedules, resulting in even less time devoted to academic instruction.

Even when English learners are assigned to mathematics courses, it's often on the basis of their English proficiency rather than their mathematics proficiency. When one of the writers was in high school, he was pulled from a challenging math course to assist a teacher with English learners in a basic math class.

According to Gandara (2003), in a random sampling of transcripts of secondary English learners from two different districts, only 21 percent of English learners' courses were college prep, compared to 58 percent for native English speakers with similar GPAs. Time and time again, poor students and ethnic and linguistic minority students are disproportionately under-enrolled in precisely the types of classes and programs that will allow them access to post-secondary education and to reasonable life options in a 21st century context.

Highly qualified teachers

Because of the way teachers are assigned, groups of students are routinely denied access to the best qualified and most experienced teachers who can provide experiences that result in high achievement. Recent studies confirm that teachers with advanced degrees have a positive impact on student performance, especially high school mathematics teachers with master's degrees in their subjects. Furthermore, teacher certification has a positive effect on high school mathematics achievement if the teacher is certified in that subject.

Unfortunately, under-qualified and under-prepared teachers frequently teach in schools and individual classes with high percentages of minority students. This same scenario plays out when we look at specific discipline areas. Classes with higher percentages of poor or minority students are more likely to be taught by teachers with neither a major nor minor in the content area being taught.

Yet, there is a positive correlation between higher CAHSEE passing rates and a higher percentage of teachers with subject area credentials in mathematics and English. In one report, it was stated that students in schools with low CAHSEE pass rates were 11 times more likely to be in a school with critical shortages of fully credentialed teachers.

A recent study by Gandara and Rumberger (2003) found that English learners are more likely than other children to be taught by teachers with an emergency credential. English learners are also less likely than other students to be taught by a qualified teacher.

Among classrooms where a majority of students are English learners, only about half of the teachers held an appropriate EL credential. In fact, only 53 percent of all English learners enrolled in grades one-four in California in 1999-2000 were taught by a teacher with any specialized training to teach them.

Given the existence of these persistent and pervasive inequities, students of poverty and linguistic/ethnic minority students will not be able to meet the requirements of the CAHSEE and NCLB unless we create and enact policies that directly challenge our current behaviors and ways of thinking.

Best instructional practices

Groups of students are routinely denied access to the best available instructional practices--what we know works for these students based on the most current research. As an example, we can look specifically at mathematics, which is a powerful gatekeeper for both high school graduation and entry to college. What types of programs yield the best mathematics achievement? Recent research studies make it clear that participation in two-way immersion programs has a long-lasting and positive impact on English learners' mathematics achievement.

Longitudinal data demonstrates that middle school students who participate in two-way immersion programs in elementary school score significantly higher than both English learners statewide (90 percent of whom receive instruction only in English) and English-only students, even though the middle school students start significantly below both of these groups in second grade. Native English speakers who participate in these programs consistently score even higher.

So, if we're looking for programs that significantly accelerate mathematics and all other academic achievement for all groups of students, and then sustain that achievement over time, the research is clear: two-way immersion programs are definitely something we should seriously consider. It's unfortunate that research is sometimes ignored when it causes some people to feel uncomfortable.

Aligned and valid assessments

English learners, students of color, poor students and special education students are routinely denied access to the type of aligned and valid assessments that accelerate and sustain achievement. Again, using English learners as an example, we can point to glaring inequities.

Although NCLB permits it, California does not allow English learners to take the required high stakes tests in the language in which they can best show what they know and can do. Because these tests, offered only in English, make it difficult for English learners to demonstrate what they know and to earn a high school diploma, English learners are losing hope. The result is academic failure, increasing dropout and push-out rates, and tremendous rates of under-education.

As President Clinton has stated, the choices and decisions we make about Hispanic education in the U.S. today are choices we make about the future of the United States itself (President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Students, 2000).

In analyzing educational outcomes, the general conclusion is that school success is predicated on family economic conditions and social status. The conclusion is so prevalent that it's reached a state of normalcy, an acceptable circumstance. But why should this tragic condition that affects all of us be acceptable to anyone?

Aspirations of youth higher than ever

California is home to more than three million 18- to 24-year-olds, and their numbers are growing. In 15 years, we can expect a 51 percent increase in this college-age cohort. The educational opportunities we offer them today will soon affect all Californians.

At the same time that we are narrowing the opportunities for them, their own educational aspirations are higher than ever before. In one study, 88 percent of eighth graders polled expected to go on to post-secondary education. Their aspirations, however, do not match their outcomes.

The first of the shock waves hit at the end of the 2005-2006 school year, when a significant number of students who did not pass the CAHSEE found themselves without a high school diploma. "Nonetheless, as of July 21, 2006, more than 40,000 members of the class of 2006--a little more than 9 percent--still had not passed the CAHSEE" (State Court of Appeal ruling in Valenzuela vs. Jack O'Connell).

"Moreover, the pass rates for certain categories of students remained considerably lower than the overall rate: about 85 percent for Hispanics, 83 percent for African-Americans, 86 percent for economically disadvantaged students, and 77 percent for English learners"

Six concrete actions to be taken

As the adults responsible for ensuring that all students learn and achieve, we will not have to bear the personal consequences of our failure to live up to this responsibility--consequences that will negatively affect these students for the rest of their lives. If we wish to remain true to our ethical code as educators, we must immediately put six concrete actions into place in every one of our schools and communities:

* Fulfill our stated commitment to leave no child behind academically, starting in pre-school and continuing in elementary, middle and high school.

* Equip every teacher with the culturally and linguistically responsive tools and strategies needed to engage diverse learners in consistently powerful learning and application of that learning.

* Revamp every course across the curriculum so it contributes toward developing the specific skills and knowledge students need to pass the CAHSEE and graduate college-ready.

* Provide every student who does not pass the CAHSEE by the end of ninth grade with high quality tutorials focused on his/her specific instructional needs.

* Establish alternate paths to and plans for post-secondary college and career opportunities early in students' high school careers, and put these plans into action for any student who does not pass the CAHSEE by the beginning of grade 12.

* Partner with our communities and businesses to fund the creation of neighborhood and community structures proven to enhance student engagement, learning and achievement.

References

California Tomorrow. (2005). California Community College Access and Equity Policy Brief.

"Confronting the Graduation Kate Crisis in California." (March 2005). The Civil Rights Project. Harvard University.

Gandara, P., Rumberger, R., Maxwell-Jolly, J. and Callahan, R. (Oct. 7, 2003). "English Learners in California Schools: Unequal Resources, Unequal Outcomes." Education Policy Analysis Archives, 11 (36).

Lindholm-Leary, K. and Borsato, G. (Fall 2005). "Hispanic High Schoolers and Mathematics: Follow Up of Students Who Had Participated in Two-Way Bilingual Elementary Programs." Bilingual Research Journal, 29:3.

Moore, C. and Shulock, N. (June 2005). "Variations on a Theme: Higher Education Performance in California by Region and Race." Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy.

President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. (2000). "Creating the Will: Hispanics Achieving Educational Excellence." A Report to the President of the United States, the Secretary of Education, and the Nation.

Rice, J.K. (2003). Teacher Quality: Understanding the Effectiveness of Teacher Attributes. Economic Policy Institute.

Swanson, C.B. (March 2005). "Who Graduates in California?" Urban Institute Education Policy Center Policy Bulletin.

Ruben Barren is deputy superintendent of the Anaheim City School District. Francisca S. Sanchez is assistant superintendent-Curriculum & Instruction, San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools.