By Crystal Betz
Daily Bruin Contributor
The issue of access to higher education, specifically at the University of California, dominated discussion among elected officials, community activists and one UCLA professor at Wednesday’s forum.
Panelists at the Bruin Democrats-sponsored event discussed raising diversity, affirmative action and the growing national problem of K-12 education.
Panelists included president of the L.A. city council Alex Padilla; Lisa Pinto, the director of Congressman Henry Waxman’s L.A. office; congressional candidate Kevin Feldman, who is challenging Waxman; and UCLA education professor James Catterall.
Each voiced concern with the inability of many to receive a quality education.
“You should realize how lucky you are to be at UCLA,” Padilla said. “You are unique and special. A lot of people wish to be here, but couldn’t qualify.”
The UC only takes a limited percentage of students across the state, and the option of private school attendance is much more expensive. For these reasons, panelists were concerned about equal access for underrepresented and low-income students.
Padilla focused on educational access on both a local and national level. One of his key points included joint use of city facilities and programs for schools, such as building new schools in city parks. This would not only be a good use of the limited space in Los Angeles, Padilla said, but it will help create a bond between communities and schools.
“It’s smart and efficient, it makes sense both fiscally and community-wise,” he said.
He also suggested bringing technical training to high schools to prepare students for college, calling this “the best education possible.”
Padilla also emphasized the recently passed No Child Left Behind Act. Signed into law Jan. 8, the national education reform plan redefines the federal role in K-12 education and aims to help close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers.
Based on four principles, the act calls for stronger accountability for results in the public school system, greater local control over curriculum and allocation of federal funds, expanded options for parents – including the choice to move a student to a safer or higher-performing school – and emphasis on teaching methods that ensure students are reading at or above grade level.
Along with these goals, student outreach must expand, especially among Latino and black communities, which still have only a 70 percent high school completion rate, Padilla said.
Though outreach systems are at work, and the growth rate in UC applications has gone up, the rate of growth in minority applications went down this year, according to UC reports.
This reveals that the whole education infrastructure has holes, Catterall said. Problems with limited access to the UC for minorities and low-income students stem from inadequate preparation in the K-12 system, he said.
The solutions that have been enacted – such as smaller classes, more reading time and emergency credentials for some teachers – all have down sides, Catterall said. For example, children are on average spending three hours on reading in school. This may increase their reading scores, but it’s a negative trade-off, leaving little time to develop other ideas and skills, he said.
Catterall proposed admitting students on criteria other than just academics to ensure classrooms where students excel in different areas.
Pinto touched on the UC’s new comprehensive review, and a rethinking of the SAT as an admissions tool. She noted the UC’s Dual Admission program, which grants students who graduate in the top 4 to 12.5 percent of their high school class admission to the UC of their choice if they agree to take their beginning classes at a community college.
She also noted the Eligibility in Local Context program, which automatically grants the top 4 percent of freshman students admission to one of the UC schools.
Unlike the other panelists, Feldman emphasized solutions to education through a business and economics strategy, including raising salary.
“It’s basic economics,” Feldman said. “If you set the pay low, it is difficult to get and retain high quality teachers.”