Monday, April 21, 2008

California Schools Some of the Worst



Since I graduated high school four years ago, I’ve noticed some major changes taking place in public schools, especially those in California. I would love to say that those changes have been for the better, but sadly I would be lying. Instead I’ve observed, more overcrowding, programs being cut, less parent involvement, more non-English speaking students, and overall poor achievement in almost all subjects, or at least the subjects that still exist. Since California schools used to be ranked towards the top of the list nationally, I decided to do some outside research and find out how they compare now. I figured that California would still be towards the top, especially since it is the only state included in the top 10 largest economies worldwide, but I was mistaken. Instead I found:

1. Per-pupil funding is consistently below national average
2. Teacher pay falls below national averages when adjusted for cost of living
3. California’s fourth and fifth graders have consistently scored lower on reading and mathematics tests, currently ranking only above Mississippi and Louisiana
4. Teachers lacking full credentials account for 15% of California public school teachers
5. The most inexperienced teachers teach in the neediest school districts
6. California has the second highest teacher-to-student ratio in the nation
7. California is below the national average in spending per pupil on school construction
8. California’s Latino and African American students are on average amongst the lowest achieving in the country

Now, a lot of people may argue that the decline of California public schools is due to the increase of non-English speaking students and that they are the reason for lower test scores. Personally, I do not feel I’m enough of an expert on the subject to state my opinion on non-English speakers, although I will say that there is evidence that in many schools, especially in Southern California, English speaking students are often ignored because teachers have to spend more time teaching them. The real problem here is that California schools are underfunded, face the same problems as all public schools, and many of its teachers are not trained to handle both non-English speaking students and English speaking students, but really who blames them? On top of having non-English speaking students, California teachers on average have 50% more students than teachers across the nation and since on average there is only one counselor for every 556 high school students in California, teachers are also expected to handle those problems. Hmm, so California is one of the wealthiest economies in the world and yet its schools are some of the worst. Something is definitely wrong here and like schools in other parts of the country, things must change or our country will continue to slip behind. It’s time for the U.S. to understand that we no longer rule this planet and we must determine why the schools and economies in other countries are passing us up. I know it’s crazy, but maybe we could even study the school systems in countries like Japan, Belgium, Finland, or the other 20+ nations whose schools rank higher than us, but it’s just a thought.

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