• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

State's Low School Spending Yields Few College Graduates

Posted on: Thursday, 23 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By Becky Bartindale, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Mar. 23--California sends a lower percentage of its seniors to in-state public four-year universities than any state but Mississippi -- and a report released Wednesday offers an explanation.

Topping the reasons: a shortage of high school counselors, adequately trained teachers and college-prep classes -- largely caused by one of the lowest levels of educational spending in the nation.

The study concludes that these roadblocks to college are present in every corner of the state -- including Santa Clara County. But they are the most prevalent in schools serving high percentages of poor minority students.

The study is the first to allow Californians to see how their schools fare in terms of having some of the most basic resources that influence whether students go on to college, its authors said. (Detailed, searchable information is available at www.ucla-idea.org.) It focuses only on students entering University of California and California State University campuses because the data was readily available and those schools are the main destination for the state's students who attend four-year schools.

"So many students begin high school saying they want to go on to college," said Professor Jeannie Oakes, one of the principal researchers and director of the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA and the UC All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity. "Whether or not they do should be a matter of their decision, rather than being in a school with such a weak college-preparatory infrastructure that the decision is taken away from them."

At the heart of the problem, concludes the study, is a failure to invest in education.

California is among the states with the highest per capita personal income in the country -- it ranks 11th -- yet when spending is adjusted for regional cost of living differences, it ranks 43rd in education spending, according to the report.

The study found tremendous differences among legislative districts in different areas of the state.

For example, the Midpeninsula region of the Bay Area shows the largest concentration of legislative districts sending the most students to California public universities, said study author John Rogers, associate director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access. Those districts also spend more money per student than the state average, Rogers said, and in some cases, more than the national average.

Among the study's findings:

-- Only one-eighth of the California students who entered the class of 2004 as ninth-graders enrolled in one of the state's public four-year universities.

-- California has the lowest ratio in the nation of high school students to counselors -- an average of 1-to-790 compared with 1-to-284.

-- California's average high school class size is 21 students per teacher, though many classes are much larger. The national average is 15 students per teacher.

The study did not consider attendance at the state's private colleges or two-year colleges. While more California high school graduates attend community colleges than anywhere else, Oakes said the statewide transfer rate to four-year colleges is relatively low.

The lack of qualified teachers and not having enough counselors and college-prep courses is particularly acute in poor districts with large minority populations, Rogers said.

"Counselors are particularly important when we think about immigrant students whose families are not familiar with the California and U.S. higher education systems," he said.

Even without major infusions of money, Rogers said, there are things school districts can do to point more students toward college.

He praised the San Jose Unified School District's "bold move" to require all students to take college-prep courses to graduate, calling it a good model for other districts.

Contact Becky Bartindale at bbartindale@mercurynews. com or (408) 920-5459.

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

More News in this Category