Brief: All California Students Should Be on College Track

By: Tess Townsend

Lower expectations of students of color are partly to blame for California's achievement gap, according to some Silicon Valley education activists.

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation and the Silicon Valley Education Foundation recently released a brief called "Time to Act: Closing the Racial Achievement Gap," which urges all California public schools to adopt a college-preparatory curriculum, reports the blog Thoughts on Public Education.

Just one in five California high schools offers the 15-course curriculum, known as the A through G requirement, which students must pass to be eligible for admission to California State University and University of California schools, according to the blog. Students of color tend to attend the schools that don't offer it.

The report recommends making the A through G curriculum the default for all public schools, and requiring it for all students unless their parents say otherwise.

This would lead to "higher expectations for students who will strive to reach them, while avoiding tracking students of color into easier courses under the assumption they cannot handle the work," the brief says.

According to Department of Education data on the Silicon Valley cities of San Mateo and Santa Clara, around 70 percent of Asian and 50 percent of Filipinio and white students meet college preparation requirements, while only 20 to 35 percent of black and Latino students do.

The brief asserts that the California public school system is inconsistent and steered by the biases of instructors and their preconceptions about students, particularly students of color.

The brief makes three other recommendations for California schools: educating teachers on how to teach a diverse student body, creating policies aimed at attracting more effective teachers and establishing consistent criteria for when students can take courses that are required to get into college.

"We must confront institutionalized racism through courageous conversations about race and its impact on education policy and practice," the brief concludes. "Failure to do so will mean losing a growing and essential portion of human capital to poverty. The price will be paid not only by individual students and families but by the entire country."