Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Merced Shows How Pandemic Widened California’s ‘Achievement Gap.
By admin
Published 3 years ago on
December 4, 2022

Share

When the California Legislature reconvenes this week for a new biennial session it will have dozens of new faces and also dozens of old, unresolved issues.

Housing shortages, inflation, homelessness and drought are among the larger ones, but none is more important than the state’s crisis in public education.

If the Legislature did nothing else during the next two years, the session would be a success if it decisively addressed the widening “achievement gap” that separates poor and English learner students — about 60% of the state’s nearly 6 million public school students — from those who come from more privileged homes.

Dan Walters with a serious expression

Dan Walters

CalMatters

Opinion

So far, the disparity has resisted inconsistent efforts by the state to close it, most prominently by giving schools with larger numbers of at-risk students extra money for focused instruction. School districts have often diverted the money into more generalized purposes, such as salary increases, and state officials have largely shunned oversight on how the extra money is spent.

It’s apparent that California’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which included shuttering schools and forcing students into sporadic forms of on-line instruction, had the effect of widening the achievement gap. Not only did California kids score very low, vis-à-vis other states, in the most recent round of federal academic achievement tests, the National Assessment of Education Progress, but there were sharp differences in how individual school districts fared.

Researchers from Stanford and Harvard universities crunched the NAEP data to assess the pandemic’s effects and concluded that the most negative impacts were on local school systems with high numbers of poor children, particularly in states which, like California, had prolonged school closures.

That’s perfectly logical, when you think of it. Affluent parents were more likely to work at home, where they could monitor how their children were doing in “Zoom school,” were more likely to have resources for remote learning, and were able, as news media reported, to hire tutors and set up mock-classrooms for their own children and classmates.

Poor parents, on the other hand, generally had to leave their homes for work, leaving their kids to fend for themselves, and often lacked internet access. The photos of poor kids trying to tap into the wi-fi system of fast food restaurants attested to that disparity, as did widespread digital truancy.

The New York Times, in its coverage of the Stanford-based Educational Opportunity Project’s NAEP analysis, cited the case of two California school districts, one in affluent Cupertino and the other in relatively poor Merced.

“Cupertino Union, a Silicon Valley school district where about 6% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch (a marker that researchers use to estimate poverty), spent nearly half of the 2020-21 school year remote,” the Times noted. “So did Merced City in the Central Valley, where nearly 80% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch,” according to the Harvard-Stanford analysis.

“Yet despite spending roughly the same amount of time attending classes remotely, students in the wealthier Cupertino district actually gained ground in math, while students in poorer Merced City fell behind.”

“The poverty rate is very predictive of how much you lost,” Sean Reardon, an education professor at Stanford who was on the analysis team, told the Times.

Giving poor districts such as Merced more money is one obvious response, but the Legislature should insist on better oversight on how extra money is spent and also accept that there’s more to the equation than money.

Some school districts do an exemplary job of overcoming students’ disadvantages and the state should push other systems to replicate their success.

About the Author

Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He began his professional career in 1960, at age 16, at the Humboldt Times. For more columns by Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.

Make Your Voice Heard

GV Wire encourages vigorous debate from people and organizations on local, state, and national issues. Submit your op-ed to rreed@gvwire.com for consideration. 

 

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

UP NEXT

Marines Prepare to Deploy in LA as More Protests Planned Across US

Harvey Weinstein Convicted of Sex Crime Amid Contentious Jury Deliberations

1 hour ago

Federal Raids Threaten California Businesses as Immigrant Workers Vanish From Job Sites

1 hour ago

Free Food, Haircuts, and Rapid HIV Testing Friday in Fresno

There will be a free food distribution event also offering free haircuts, rapid HIV testing, and community resources this Friday. The event ...

19 seconds ago

19 seconds ago

Free Food, Haircuts, and Rapid HIV Testing Friday in Fresno

29 minutes ago

California Is a Donor State, but Can It Stop Sending Its Tax Dollars to DC?

Military Vehicles on LA Freeway 101
40 minutes ago

Marines Prepare to Deploy in LA as More Protests Planned Across US

1 hour ago

Harvey Weinstein Convicted of Sex Crime Amid Contentious Jury Deliberations

1 hour ago

Federal Raids Threaten California Businesses as Immigrant Workers Vanish From Job Sites

2 hours ago

Water Scarcity Is Forcing Tough Decisions. This Legislation Can Keep Our Family Farm Afloat

Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, center, applauds for those affected by the Los Angeles area wildfires as she gives the State of the State address in the House of Representatives at the state Capitol with Speaker of the House Rep. Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, left, and Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, flanking the governor on Jan. 13, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP File)
2 hours ago

Arizona Governor Vetoes Bill to Ban Teaching Antisemitism in Arizona’s Public Schools

Brian Wilson obit
3 hours ago

Brian Wilson, Summer’s Poet Laureate of the Beach Boys, Dies at 82

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend