No Child Left Behind: Los Angeles Elementary Students Research Paper

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Updated: Mar 9th, 2024

Introduction

Education is the fundamental right of any individual irrespective of caste, creed, and color. Knowledge acquisition for everyone is a vital objective of any nation because of actions of individuals everywhere can negatively or positively affect the collective contribution to the economy they live in and the world as a whole. Education means to bring a person out of a previous state to lead the person to a better state. Providing quality education only to a particular section of society, and denying the same to another section, is an unjustifiable crime. What is happening in the schools in Los Angeles is a question asked by many parents; so, a lot has a look at the state of affairs in LAUSD. This study brings to the notice of the authorities concerned that quality education needs to be provided to the economically weaker sections of the community in Los Angeles without any disparity in the distribution of educational resources.

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It becomes obvious from the data collected that LAUSD shows partiality to the ethnic minority and poor families who form a major group in the schools in Los Angeles. There is an apparent division within the schools in LAUSD where educational resources are passed on to affluent sections of the society at the cost of the poor and needy. The significance of this study is to create public awareness about this partial attitude of the authorities concerned and help the community to move towards a healthy environment in education. The data collected for this study are from researches already done before on this subject and analyzing different opinions and suggestions emerging thereon. However, some of the latest issues are not dealt with in detail in those researches which this study will focus on. Before I go into the details about this subject, I would like to examine some of the resolutions made by different organizations that are responsible for achieving the goal of Education For All within the United States. (Education).

In March 1990, the world conference on Education for All (EFA) was convened in Jomtien, Thailand, to address the concerns about inadequate provisions of basic education, especially in developing countries. The conference was attended by representatives from over 150 countries which includes government and non-government agencies. Participants in the conference adopted a world declaration on education for all that reaffirmed the concept of education as a fundamental human right and urged the nations to meet the basic learning needs of all children, youth, and adults.

In the month following Jomtien, a US coalition for education for all (USCEFA) was Formed in support of the goals of the framework and as a means of bridging domestic and international education agenda. The board of directors included representatives of the US department of education and a number of professional and research organizations. However the USCEFA was dismantled in 1996, and in 1997 a new coalition was formed, which was named the International Education and Training Coalition. This is a broad group of more than 60 nongovernmental organizations that advocate for increased US state investment in the full range of education needs both within the US and in other developing countries.

The status of Education for All in the United States

The framework of action to meet basic learning needs specified 6 target dimensions to be used as a basis for setting intermediate and long-term goals and for measuring the progress towards the goal of EFA. The target dimensions are:

  1. Expansion of early childhood care and developmental activities especially for poor disadvantaged and disabled children.
  2. Universal access to and completion of primary education by the year 2000.
  3. Improvement in learning achievement
  4. Reduction of adult illiteracy rate, especially the disparity between male and female rats.
  5. Expansion of basic education and training in other essential skills required by youth and adults.
  6. Increased acquisition by individuals and the families of the knowledge skills and values required for better living made available through all education channels including mass media.

Review of literature

Despite relatively strong overall numbers of the above six targeted dimensions, the US educational system is still characterized by continuing and in some cases growing disparities among various subsets of students in the distribution of educational resources and in students’ persistence and achievement. The quality of education that is delivered in these schools is as bad as in any third-world country. The distribution of education resources is far behind in these schools, compared to schools in other countries. Researches done in this field have concluded that for some disadvantaged children and their families, government fund invested early in the lives of poor children result in compensating decreases in government expenditure later. (Shortchanging poor and minority schools).

According to the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning (CFTL)

Students in California’s poorest schools are more than likely to have an under-prepared teacher, as are students in more affluent schools, and students in schools with the highest minority are whopping five times more likely to have an underprepared teacher as are students in schools with a lower percentage of minority students. The consequences of this inequitable pattern are clear with the lowest passing rates in schools with the higher minority.

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What is behind the disproportionate access to effective teachers?

A closer look at 2 public schools in Los Angeles illustrates how significant the teachers’ salary gap can be. 2 schools that exemplify one of the largest disparities in teacher salaries in Los Angeles are Locke Senior High and Granada Hills Senior High. There are some obvious differences between the two schools? Locke educates mostly Latin and African American students (99.8%) and low-income students. 66% of the students are eligible to receive free or reduced-price meals. In contrast, a smaller fraction of the students at Granada Hills are Latin and African Americans (31.7%) only 26.6% are eligible for free or discounted meals. Locke is also found to be performing far behind Granada Hills.

Locke’s academic performance index (API) is 440 while Grand Hill’s has an API of 773. Further, Granada Hill’s students are also twice as likely as Locke’s students to pass exit exams. Granada Hill’s passing rate is 84% in Math and 88% in English, while Locke’s passing rates are discouraging 31% and 37% respectively. Many people probably attribute the lower student performance at Locke to its student population. That assumption however completely ignores the critical factor.

LAUSD (Los Angeles United School District) provides fewer experienced, well-educated, and consequently well-paid teachers to high-poverty and high-minority schools. Indeed the average teacher at Locke get paid an estimated $8034 less every year

Then his or her counterpart at Granada Hills. What is the significance of this $8034? Think Of it this way. If Locke spends as much on its teachers as Grand Hills, the school budget would increase by $95, 6046 a year ($8034 multiplied by 119 teachers). This means the district is shortening the school almost a million dollars a year, the amount necessary to level the playing field and catch- it up to teacher spending in Granada Hills. With almost a million more in its budget, Locke could dramatically improve the quality of teaching in any number of ways. It could hire 20 more teachers, provide substantive professional development to its new and existing teachers and or provide extended learning time for its students. But LAUSD doesn’t have the unlimited fund to provide Locke or any other schools listed in this study. But they have to close the hidden gaps.

The hidden teachers spending impacts most schools in LAUSD. For many, the impact is considerable hundreds and thousands of dollars annually. And until now, these gaps were hidden from public view. The effect of these gaps on schools is significant which is clear from the tables shown below.

Table 3A: Elementary School Poverty Gaps.

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West Vernon Avenue Elementary 72 $49,076 $55,200 $440,897 98.2% 99.7%

Forty-Ninth Street Elementary 86 $50,119 $55,200 $436,969 96.6% 100.0%

South Park Elementary 57 $47,854 $55,200 $418,701 96.9% 99.6%

Miles Avenue Elementary 130 $52,164 $55,200 $394,635 93.6% 99.3%

Woodcrest Elementary 72 $49,847 $55,200 $385,419 89.4% 99.0%

Seventy-Fifth Street Elementary 87 $50,908 $55,200 $373,383 97.3% 99.9%

Parmelee Avenue Elementary 76 $50,272 $55,200 $372,079 85.3% 99.9%

Sixty-Sixth Street Elementary 67 $49,654 $55,200 $371,587 94.3% 99.9%

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Barrett (Charles W.) Elementary 63 $49,307 $55,200 $371,288 96.4% 99.2%

Middleton Street Elementary 103 $51,636 $55,200 $367,100 90.1% 99.6%

Vaughn Next Century Learning Center 69 $50,171 $55,200 $346,972 100.0% 99.4%

Average-LAUSD Elementary Schools 78.1% 81.3%

On average, Californian schools serve 824 students. California spends $301 cost adjusted dollars less per student. This means that with a $301 funding gap a low-income school loses $ 2,48024 in unrealized funds to its high-income counterparts every year. (Objective analysis).

Results of data analysis and explanation of the result

From the data given above, it is obvious that discrimination is rampant as far as the distribution of education income is concerned and the practice has been going on for decades. So unless something urgent is done schools dropping out are going to mount resulting in socio-economic problems. The US is already facing the problem of dropping out in schools and such dropouts, due to their poor academic achievement, finds it hard to find better-paying jobs and resort to crime.

As mentioned earlier, if the government extends their financial support early to the poor and needy children. This results in compensating decrease in government expenditure in the future because a good percentage of the dropouts will find their way to prison and some may turn into hard-core criminals.

Following is the extract from research conducted within Rand education, a division of the Rand Corporation with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In their report, they state that, continuing inequalities in the resources- both capital and human available to schools in poor communities with a large concentration of African American and Latino Students. The inequalities represent a moral and arguably a state of the constitutional problem- is it fair that the schools with the highest poverty students also have the poorest resources? Should schools that do not have sufficient resources to succeed be accountable for goals that require success? Should not all students have a fair chance to succeed? These questions are presently before the Californian courts in Williams vs the State Of California, and it is important that the state leaders step up to the plate and find a fair and equitable solution to the legal complaint out of the court.

Conclusion

The report concludes that Californian students rank lowest in the nation in student Achievement and that this is consistently true across all racial and ethnic groups. One source of this problem they state is that the Californian accountability system provides school leaders with an end-of-the-year snapshot of how the school performed but does not provide data in time and manner that could be used by the principals and teachers for continuous improvement. In contrast, the state with similar demographics like Texas, have made robust progress on student achievements because their accountability systems provide multiple for teachers to assess students progress on meeting state standards and, potentially to make mid-term corrections.

References

Short changing poor and minority schools: California’s hidden teacher spending gap. The Education Trust – West. Web.

Objective analysis: effective solutions. (2008). Rand corporation. Web.

Education: ‘writing by kids’ gives Namibian children a voice. (2007). AED. Web.

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IvyPanda. 2024. "No Child Left Behind: Los Angeles Elementary Students." March 9, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/no-child-left-behind-los-angeles-elementary-students/.

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