Report reveals student challenges
San Benito County’s children in the bottom half of California’s
counties in five of six key educational benchmarks.
Report reveals student challenges
San Benito County’s children in the bottom half of California’s counties in five of six key educational benchmarks.
However, that sixth category sounds a hopeful note. Even thought San Benito ranks 47th out of 58 California counties in the percentage of elementary school students meeting state targets in English language arts, by the time they graduate from high school, local students are ranked 12th among the state’s counties in the percentage of students eligible to attend a public university.
The study was conducted by the children’s advocacy Children NOW – a research and advocacy organization working to raise children’s well-being. The organization collects data on children under the age of 18 throughout the state for the purposes of lobbying state officials to change legislation affecting children.
The advocates shared their findings with county superintendents across the state, including San Benito County Superintendent Tim Foley.
“We received the report earlier in June and found the results interesting,” Foley said. “Some of the information I found to be counter-intuitive. For example, in the demographics a few years ago this was one of the wealthiest counties in the state, now these results seem to indicate that we’ve slipped considerably. Other items like children’s healthcare we’re always concerned about.”
Some statistics from the report: 93 percent of children within San Benito County have health insurance, ranking San Benito 36th of the state’s counties.
“There was a small range for health insurance,” said Corey Newhouse of Children NOW. “California has done such a good job getting health insurance to kids.”
Fifty nine percent of households in San Benito County have children under the age of 18 and only 12 percent of homes in the county are living in poverty, slightly lower than the average for the Central Coast region, which is 16 percent.
What concerns Foley about the statistics is that the numbers show that school children achievement between the second and sixth grade are lacking in English language arts comprehension; 36 percent of the students in San Benito County are proficient or advanced. That is relatively low compared to the Central Coast region which is 45 percent. Statewide the average is 43 percent.
The same goes for elementary math skills. The data shows that the percentage of students that are proficient or advanced in San Benito County is 43 percent, whereas the Central Coast and statewide percentages are 52 percent.
The percentages for kids in grades seven through 11 aren’t any better. Only 39 percent of seventh through 11 graders are proficient or advanced in English language arts. That is compared with 44 percent in the Central Coast region and statewide the average is 40 percent.
The same is true for upper level math learners. In fact, those numbers are a little more frightening. The percentage of students in San Benito County that are proficient or advanced in math is only 26 percent. The percentage of students in the Central Coast region is only slightly higher at 31 percent and the state average is 28 percent.
“English language arts is something that is lacking in counties around the state,” Newhouse said. “Even Marin [County], which is at the top of the heap across the board only had 68 percent.”
Regardless of San Benito County’s status in relation to other nearby counties, Foley is not taking the numbers lightly.
“I think that the proficiency scores in language arts for kids in grades two through six are fairly low and we are investing a lot of effort in working with the school districts to improve the scores,” Foley said. “This is the type of information that we will be reflecting on and seeing if it is accurate. There is a mantra in education that we want to use multiple measures for evaluating programs and students. That’s exactly what we need to do.”
