Courtesy Oakbook

Recent test scores show Oakland has a long way to go when it comes to closing the achievement gap.

Tony Smith has been very clear about what he sees as his mission as the superintendent of Oakland’s public schools. “We’ve figured out how to provide a good education to white and Asian students," he said, "now we have to do that for African-American and Latino students.”

Results of standardized tests released earlier this week by the California Department of Education show that Smith and his colleagues in the Oakland Unified School District have a long way to go to meet the challenge Smith set for himself. By the time black students are in 11th grade, only 14 percent are proficient in reading and writing. That’s compared to 17 percent for Latino students, 47 percent for Asians, and 72 percent for white students. Oakland Unified’s racial achievement gap in English is one of the most pronounced in the state. (Go here to look at test scores from every public school in the state, including charters.)

But is it possible that Smith has given himself an impossible goal? Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., said that schools alone cannot bridge the class divisions that are the primary reasons for black and Latino students scoring worse than whites and Asians on standardized tests. Rothstein, who has written extensively on the achievement gap for over 20 years, said that school quality is very important; principals and teachers can make a difference, but not one that overcomes social inequality. “The notion that you can eliminate class distinctions when students are coming from unequal social conditions is foolhardy,” said Rothstein.

Rothstein’s skepticism is at odds with prevailing philosophy in education circles, which argues that schools staffed with good teachers and principals working together can narrow the achievement gap. As disappointing news from New York City showed this week, this remains more of a hope than a proven model. Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, is an early and leading proponent of the idea that students arriving at school from intellectually and financially impoverished homes are dealt a double disadvantage in the form of average or low-quality teachers. Only very good teachers, according to Hanushek, can begin to make up for social differences.

It was Hanushek’s research into what made a good teacher (it wasn’t necessarily a masters degree or X number of years on the job) that spawned some of the ideas Smith is putting into action in Oakland Unified. Smith will be developing a new way for the district to measure teacher effectiveness, which will certainly include student performance on standardized tests.

But Rothstein said that standardized tests are intrinsically corrupt because teachers naturally teach to the test. Moreover, Rothstein said, the various definitions of proficiency are arbitrary. “Every scientific panel that has looked at them has found them uncredible,” Rothstein said.

To be sure, Smith and his colleagues are not tackling the achievement gap unaware of the competing research or the paucity of success outside of small examples. “We realize that the home life plays an important part in the development of a child,” said OUSD spokesman Troy Flint. “But we also realize that many accomplished people have come from less than ideal home lives, and the obligation of the school district is to try and help students over come obstacles and reach their potential.”