Statement of Ross Wiener,

EdTrust Vice President of Program & Policy

Before the

Education Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee

House of Representatives, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

March 7, 2008

Achievement Gaps in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has large achievement gaps between different groups of students that do not improve as students progress through the public schools. On both national and state tests, students of color and students from low-income families are far less likely to demonstrate proficiency in the fundamental building blocks of learning. As this state struggles to transition from an industrial-based economy to compete in the new globalized, knowledge-based economy, improving education outcomes must be a critically important priority.

The achievement gap patterns are particularly troubling in a state like Pennsylvania where the African American and Hispanic student populations are expected to grow substantially over the coming years, while the number of white students in the state’s schools is expected to decrease. The future of Pennsylvania, its economy, and its democracy all hinge on closing these achievement gaps. Before I mention a few ways in which the state, and this Committee in particular, could more effectively address these achievement gaps, I would like to describe in some more detail the magnitude of the gaps that Pennsylvania must confront.

Among African American and Hispanic fourth-graders, basic reading skills are the exception instead of the rule. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 44% and 43% of African American and Hispanic fourth grade students, respectively, demonstrated reading skills in 2007 that were at least at the basic level – compared to fully 81% of white forth graders. Meanwhile, almost half of white students were at the proficient or advanced level on the national test, compared to only 13% and 15% of African American and Hispanic students.

Lower achievement among minority students is a particularly acute problem in Pennsylvania, where minority students perform worse than their counterparts in most other states and far below the levels achieved by African American and Hispanic students in Delaware, Ohio, and New Jersey. Moreover, while there has been some slow progress in improving reading achievement (except with Hispanics, where achievement has been basically flat), there has been almost no progress in narrowing the divide between groups since 2002.

Low-income students also are struggling in Pennsylvania’s public schools; 47% of low-income students demonstrate reading skills that are below the basic level, compared to only 17% of non-low-income students with reading skills that are this low in fourth grade. While Pennsylvania’s low-income students perform slightly better than the national average for students from low-income families, Pennsylvania’s low-income students demonstrate lower reading skills than their counterparts in Delaware, Ohio, and New Jersey.

Results in 8^th grade mathematics are similar: African American, Hispanic and low-income students trail far behind the achievement of their white and more affluent peers. Just 13% of African American students and 17% of Hispanic students are proficient or advanced in 8^th grade mathematics, compared with 44% of white students. Again, minority students do worse in Pennsylvania than minority students in other states.

Low-income students perform just slightly above the national average for low-income students, but 41% of low-income 8^th graders in Pennsylvania demonstrate below basic skills in math, compared to just 16% of non-low-income students who struggle at that level.

On the state’s own test, the PSSA, the story is similar: Although the standards are not as rigorous as the national NAEP examination, the gaps are still very large. In fourth grade reading, for instance, while 77% of white students are reading at the state’s proficient level, just 46% of African American and 46% of Hispanic students are reading on grade level, and just half of all low-income fourth-grade students (52%) in the state are reading on grade level. In eighth grade math there has been slight progress across the state for all groups over the last couple of years, but there still are large gaps and relatively low performance with low-income and minority students. Less than half of African American (40%), Hispanic (48%) and low-income students (49%), are demonstrating grade-level skills in 8^th grade mathematics.

At the end of 11^th grade, as students are evaluating their options and preparing to pursue dreams beyond high school, these achievement gaps are as wide as at any time in their public school careers. In mathematics, just over half (54%) of all Pennsylvania eleventh graders are proficient against the state’s standards, but just 25% of African American students, 28% of Hispanic students, and 32% of low-income students are proficient in eleventh grade math.

In eleventh grade reading, achievement has improved very little in the last several years, and the gaps remain very wide. Just 36% of both African American and Hispanic students and just 42% of low-income students are proficient in reading.  These levels of achievement make success in higher education and good-paying jobs in the 21^st Century virtually out of reach for the majority of Pennsylvania’s low-income and minority students. As these students near completion of their public education, they already are relegated to life on the margins.

How Can Appropriations Close Achievement Gaps?

There is much that Pennsylvania can do to provide equal opportunities in public education and to create the conditions for closing achievement gaps.

1. Funding Gaps

Pennsylvania has one of the most unfair education funding systems in the country. The Education Trust publishes an annual “Funding Gap” report, which looks at the allocation of state/local education funding among districts with the highest vs. lowest concentrations of low-income and minority students in each state.

High-poverty school districts in Pennsylvania receive $1,055 less per-student, per-year in state and local revenues than school districts with the fewest low-income students. For a typical high school of 1,500 students, this means that there is over one-and-a-half million dollars LESS that is available in a high-poverty district.

High-minority school districts are similarly disadvantaged under Pennsylvania’s current education funding policies. High-minority school districts have $662 less in state and local dollars per-student, per-year than low-minority districts. Instead of funding systems that are set up to address and ameliorate gaps, we take the students who have the least outside of school and give them the least in school, too.

These manifest inequities are not fair and they are not good education policy. And they are not inevitable. Consider that Ohio, which used to have a funding gap that disadvantaged high-poverty school districts, now provides high-poverty districts with $833 MORE per-student, per-year than low-poverty districts in Ohio. And in New Jersey, where high-poverty districts have $2,712 more in state and local dollars per-student, per-year than low-poverty school districts.

Pennsylvania should move to increase the state’s share of total education funding and should target the new investment to the high-poverty and high-minority school districts that are being shortchanged under the current policies. Improving these districts is imperative for closing achievement gaps, and while more money alone will not solve the problems in these districts, it is a necessary step toward equity and will provide important resources for reform.

2. Educator Quality: Adequate Supply and Fair Access for Low-Income and Minority Students

The effectiveness of school leaders and teachers is the single most important ingredient in education improvement efforts. Compelling research from across the country and over years documents this fundamental premise. But just as much data and research establishes the fact that any way you look at the data, there are grave inequities in access to teacher talent, with high-poverty and high-minority schools having the most novice and under-prepared teachers. We simply cannot close achievement gaps without ensuring that students of color and students growing up in poverty get their fair share of the best principals and teachers.

Pennsylvania has opportunity gaps in students’ access to qualified teachers. According to an analysis of the Schools and Staffing Survey, which is a large-scale survey administered by the National Center for Educational Statistics, Pennsylvania does not provide qualified teachers on an equitable basis. For the state as a whole, 17% of secondary school classes are taught by teachers with neither a major nor appropriate certification in the subject they are teaching. In high-poverty schools, this percentage doubles to 35.5% -- more than one in three classes taught by an out-of-field teacher, while in low-poverty schools in Pennsylvania the figure is less than 10%. The numbers are similar when we compare teacher credentials in schools with predominantly minority students, where 39.7% of classes are taught by teachers with neither a major nor certification in the subject, versus those schools with few minority students, where the figure is 11.9%. Pennsylvania is rightly concerned with improving student achievement in high school academics; to address this problem, the state needs to ensure that the teachers are in place to teach the higher-level academic courses.

The state can play at least two important roles in ensuring equity in teacher quality. One is to focus on the supply of teachers. While Pennsylvania prepares a lot of teachers, there are surpluses in some subjects and shortages in others. This is not a problem that K-12 can solve on its own. In other states, such as Georgia and North Carolina, leaders in higher education have worked with leaders in K-12 to project the needs for teachers in certain subjects and certain regions in the coming years, and then higher education has set goals for meeting the teaching-force needs of the states’ public schools. In both of these states, the goals call for increased production through traditional routes as well as through alternative programs that appeal to career-switchers and non-traditional applicants.

At the University of Texas-Austin, the highly respected U-TEACH program has forged a partnership between the college of arts and sciences and the college of education to focus on filling the state’s need for math and science teachers. The program recruits accomplished math and physical science majors and creates a specialized teacher training program for them with early clinical experiences and financial incentives for completing their education coursework.

Another important role for the state is to provide incentives and resources to make teaching in high-poverty schools more attractive. While there may be no state-wide solution that can solve the problems of attracting and retaining the strongest teachers in hard-to-staff schools, the state could more aggressively collect and disseminate data on the problem and could provide pressure and incentive money for local districts to solve this problem.

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