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Make no mistake about it
Statistics are not always dull; they can tell a very interesting story. And following the numbers can lead to some important conclusions. Try these:
In 1940, only 24.5 percent of Americans had a high school diploma, and just 4.6 percent had four years of college. But, by 1995, 85.8 percent of Americans in the 25-64 age group had that high school diploma and 25.3 percent had four years of college. That change was pervasive, too. By 1998, African American and Anglo-American high school graduation rates were finally equal.
In 1999, 65.6 percent of the year's high school graduates went on to college (69.1 percent of women); in the school year 1999-2000, that meant there were 14.9 million students enrolled in college. Plenty of them stayed, too: in 1997, 31.8 percent of Americans ages 25-29 were college graduates. Every one of these college statistics puts the United States as number one in the world.
Now for California. In 1999, 21 percent of our K-12 students were limited English speaking or non-English speaking, and 61.2 percent of our student population belongs to some ethnic minority: 40.5 percent Latino, 12.1 percent Asian/Pacific Islanders, 8.8 percent African American, and 0.9 percent Native American.
Connected to those figures are some troubling ones. In 1999, the United States led the industrialized world in child poverty - that statistic can break your heart. In 1998, 27.2 percent of those low-income children were living with parents suffering poor mental health. Twenty percent of all American K-12 students live with a mother who did not finish high school. (Educators have learned that the mother's level of education is a significant factor in her children's success in school.)
Let's take a look at the people educating this diverse and troubled population. In 1997, the nation had 2,704,987 classroom teachers, 166,741 principals and supervisors, and 14,471 superintendents - which my calculator tells me means there was one administrator for every 14.9 teachers. (How many kids did you say you have per teacher in your school?) The average teacher salary in 1994 was $39,649, and the average principal's salary was $62,499; my calculator says that principals are ahead by 27 percent.
Back to California: By now you have heard that our state has the sixth largest economy in the world, producing goods and services valued at over $1 trillion. In fact, California accounted for an eighth of all U.S. goods and services - our economy is 60 percent larger than the number two state, New York. So, with all that wealth, how did we do on our schools? We ranked 40th out of 50 in our funding of K-12 public schools. And in post-12th-grade education, money ran short enough in 1999 to keep 4,773 fully qualified kids out of San Diego State University.
There you are: in the face of insufficient - in fact, disgraceful - underfunding and coping daily with the problems poverty brings to the classroom, California's teachers - and teachers everywhere else, for that matter - did an amazing job of educating the children.
No other country on earth even tries to give every child 12 years of free public education. No other country on earth sends a higher percentage of its school population on to college. No other country on earth produces college graduates at our rate.
If you'd just landed from Mars and saw those statistics, you'd expect to see cheering squads praising the teachers who accomplished all that. But instead, the teachers who have stayed the course, who have put up with unhelpful administration, miserable working conditions, unprofessional salaries, insufficient supplies of every kind - these are the ones who are being publicly scrutinized by critical politicians and bureaucrats. These teachers are being told they are accountable for student achievement scores on tests that not only ignore the problems of poverty and language but are not even aligned with the curricula that teachers are told to teach. All educational reform is on the teacher and no one else. That has got to stop.
Over the years, public schools and their teachers have produced classroom miracles against all the odds. Now we must provide support to enable them to continue and even improve. That means more funding. It can be done. Make no mistake about it: Surely the richest state in the richest country in the world can make a major investment in its six million K-12 students.
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