The 2016 “Noguera Report” concluded that the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) failed to improve student equity by reducing income-related disparities in academic achievement and attributed the lack of progress in part to “distractions” that prevented SMMUSD leadership from keeping its focus on student equity. The report recommended the board focus more on addressing the substantive impediments to student learning rather than getting distracted by non-education-related concerns (such as Malibu lawsuits).
School districts with fewer per capita resources than Santa Monica, notably in Hawthorne and Lawndale, have succeeded in reducing income-related disparities in learning by improving school nutrition. Money is not the reason SMMUSD has failed to improve equity. It will remain among the top one percent of wealthiest districts after spinning off its Malibu district. The problem is the board’s history of ignoring substantive concerns from both communities in favor of saving/raising money.
Examples of issues impinging on students’ academic performance that historically have been ignored by the SMMUSD in order to save/raise money range from the use of pesticides to refusing to remove PCBs to sales of junk food on school campuses to refusing to eliminate sugar-added, flavored milk from the lunch menu. Boosting SMMUSD income by selling junk food and sugar-added milk to students, despite parental objections, bespeaks a cynical view of what is required of SMMUSD leadership. Yes, raising SMMUSD income even higher should afford students more academic opportunities. But students who consume more junk food and more sugar are less physically fit, which in turn is associated with lower test scores. Low-income students are more dependent on school-provided food and have therefore suffered more from the junk food. By focusing exclusively on how to maximize dollars, to the exclusion of substantive impediments to learning, SMMUSD has undermined its stated commitment to reducing student inequities. Unfortunately, it is the 10 percent of Malibu students eligible for government-subsidized lunches who will suffer the most.
Lawsuits seem to be the only way for Malibu parents to get the SMMUSD Board to behave more equitably under the current arrangement. Separation is the most reasonable solution for improving equity for both Santa Monica’s and Malibu’s low-income students.
William McCarthy