UCLA is a gem within California’s system of public education. But to the southeast there is a school that represents another part of that system: Dorsey High. The two campuses are just 8 miles apart, but by a host of other measures, the distance that separates them is far greater.
UCLA’s magnificent campus offers just about everything that a teacher or student could want. There are fast computers, a superb library and excellent classrooms, to say nothing of the commanding redwoods and lovely teak benches that grace the north part of campus, where I work at the School of Law.
Dorsey High is another story. There, 2,209 students are crammed into a building that is designed to accommodate 1,000. One history class has 43 students in a room without enough desks, leaving some students with only folding chairs or the floor to sit on. The 67-year-old building is infested with cockroaches and rodents. In some classrooms, students must share textbooks, and there are none available to take home for homework. There is often only one unlocked bathroom to accommodate the more than 1,000 boys. As you can imagine, the school has a hard time attracting and retaining well-qualified teachers. Thirty percent of the teachers on campus lack full credentials; a fifth are in their first or second year of teaching. The turnover rate is high.
The results of this are not surprising. In 1998, 609 students entered the ninth grade at Dorsey. Four years later, 326 students graduated. Only 51 had taken the courses they needed to even apply to a state university. This year, 12 Dorsey students applied to UCLA. One was accepted and enrolled. I do not know that student, but I do appreciate the distance he or she had to travel to get to UCLA.
Sadly, Dorsey High is far from being the worst high school in California. Nor are high school students the only ones who are being short-changed. Over the past 30 years, California’s public schools have, on average, fallen from among the best in the country to among the worst. But however bad things are on average, they are far worse for low-income students and students of color. Whether measured by access to trained teachers, the availability of textbooks or overcrowding in classrooms, low-income students of color are generally three to 10 times more likely to be relegated to seriously substandard schools. Ninety-eight percent of the students at Dorsey are African American or Latina/o. Fifty years ago this May, the United States Supreme Court promised in its landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision that this country would offer a public education “available to all on equal terms.” At Dorsey, as well as at many other public schools, the words of that promise seem distant and empty.
As stark as this picture seems, there is reason for hope, some of it taking shape at UCLA. Four years ago, a coalition of civil-rights lawyers sued the State of California on behalf of the 1 million children who are trapped in the worst public schools. The plaintiffs in Williams v. State of California want the state to establish minimal standards for the essential tools for learning, and then to ensure that school districts and individual schools deliver those necessities to all students. They demand a system in which school districts and state officials are held accountable for the opportunities for teaching and learning in each public school. The students in my public-policy advocacy class helped with the initial research in that case. The lead expert for the plaintiffs is Jeannie Oakes Ph.D. ’80, UCLA’s Presidential Professor in Educational Equity. Many UCLA law students and recent graduates of our Program in Public Interest Law and Policy have volunteered to help the civil rights lawyers. I’ve provided a hand myself. The help was needed — the response to the lawsuit of then-Gov. Gray Davis was to drag out the litigation, with the state spending a reported $18 million on the most expensive private lawyers.
The recent election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor has brought a new approach and some promising new ideas. The new governor appointed former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan — a man who, as both a private and public citizen, has been acutely concerned about the quality of education that is provided to society’s most at-risk kids — secretary of education. William Ouchi, the Sanford & Betty Sigoloff Professor of Management in the UCLA Anderson School of Management, is a key adviser to Riordan and the new administration. Ouchi’s ideas, most recently set out in his book Making Schools Work, have drawn wide support. These include giving school principals and teachers control of school budgets and holding them accountable for results; changing the funding system so that each student brings to the school he or she attends a subsidy weighted to take account of individual learning needs; and allowing parents to choose among public schools. The civil rights lawyers and the state are now in confidential settlement talks. It is too soon to know what may come of them.
It is just possible that a synthesis of Professor Ouchi’s ideas and those advanced by Professor Oakes and the civil rights lawyers can form the basis for dramatic structural reform in California public education. Educators would be given real control over resources and then held accountable not only for test scores but for learning opportunities and conditions in schools. Schools with the highest-need students would have more resources. A public persuaded that our schools are efficient and accountable might then be willing to spend more tax money to support them. Of course, the details of all this are incredibly complicated. But an optimist can find reason for hope that we may soon begin the work of returning California schools to excellence, and the work of keeping Brown’s promise of an education provided “to all on equal terms.”
