Even Lower
The Good News
(08/25/2009)
Here's
how the San
Francisco Chronicle summarized the 2009 test scores for
California K-12 schools on 8/19:
"Based on the rate of improvement from 2003 to 2009,
it would take up to 105 years to close the white/Hispanic
achievement gap, and at least 189 years to close the white/black
gap, which has failed to narrow by even a point in English
since 2003..."
Sounds
like what we've been saying for years.
Despite
local praise, the PUSD had one of the biggest annual increases
in its academic achievement gaps this decade. This praise
only perpetuates the moral, social, and economic injustice
of these worst-ever PUSD results. Sadly, PUSD once again
chose to waste precious resources in an attempt to hide
these morally repugnant results. Meanwhile, the small but
growing list of brave schools across California that are
actually closing their achievement gaps means yet another
decline in the Altadena demographic majority's readiness
for admission to college and success beyond.
How did this happen? Some schools in California have higher
percentages of Low Income students, higher percentages of
English Language Learners, and more students enrolled in
each grade than PUSD. And yet the best of them are performing
better than PUSD, whose most severe achievement gaps versus
these "top comparables" have gone from the least
frequent in 2003 to the most common in 2009, totaling 43%
of all PUSD achievement gaps.
It is important to keep in mind that our children are growing
up in an increasingly competitive world. Failure to understand
what is happening to our children in the context of academic
proficiencies statewide, nationally, and even globally perpetuates
the economic servitude our student majority faces. Click
on Our
Very Low Proficiencies Are Getting Worse (1 page, PDF).
Click on the table headings in this link to see where the
PUSD data comes from. Ask questions! The economic future
of our children - and perhaps even the economic future of
our nation - may depend on it!
The Good News
At PUSD and other local school districts this decade, the
turnover of certificated staff (teachers) is 2-4 times the
LA County and CA annual average. This high turnover opens
up the equivalent of 1-2 schools per year in Altadena. What's
so great about that? All those open positions can be made
available to the few who will do the hard work of closing
the achievement gap in a few short years! Since the lead
time for lining up these rare educators can be somewhat
long and the end of our signature collecting is in sight,
we've taken the time to meet with organizations this past
summer that have a repeatable, reliable record of closing
the academic achievement gap in every grade and subject.
Our meetings with those who share our passion for closing
the gap are causing us to get to know each other better.
We're sending volunteers to observe these organization's
classrooms, to get some additional doors opened to us, and
are getting some pretty amazing educational results introduced
to us along the way. In one meeting we learned about the
students at a CA middle school with a Low Income student
population of over 85% who year after year achieve APIs
that exceed those of La Canada! No wonder this organization
does not talk about the usual "Proficient or Above".
Instead they focus on getting their students to the CA Dept
of Education's highest measure of academic proficiency:
"Advanced"!
In summary, the Altadena Schools effort is not just about
forming a new school district. Our volunteers serve as representatives
for closing the achievement gap, ready to help our fellow
Altadenans avoid the mistake of unknowingly aligning themselves
with those from past generations who turned away from the
most urgent moral, social, and economic injustices of their
times. It will be by tapping into the good nature we've
found in our Altadena petition signers that we reach our
ultimate goal, which is to end the injustice facing our
Altadena students by closing the academic achievement gap
at the first-in-the-nation scale of every school, grade,
and subject in our community!
If you
would like to help complete signature collection and/or
help with the tasks that follow, please click on Get
Involved!
