SACRAMENTO — Motivated by a call to arms from state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell to tackle California's most vexing educational challenge, more than 4,000 educators flocked to the state capital Tuesday for the opening of a two-day summit to discuss ways to close the gap in educational achievement among racial and ethnic groups.

The gap is deep and chronic — white and Asian students were more than twice as likely to attain a score of proficient or better in language arts than black and Latino students in the most recent round of state standardized tests. O'Connell said closing that gap will be the Department of Education's top priority in the years ahead.

O'Connell, closing out the end of the first year of his second term, said he will hold himself accountable if the gap does not quickly begin to close.

"I'm staking my next three years on this," he said.

The response from educators was overwhelming. By the 9 a.m. opening, a sign in the lobby of the Sacramento Convention Center announced, "Sorry. Conference sold out." Organizers said every hotel room in the city was booked.

"Why did 4,000 people show up?" mused Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Charles Weis, who estimated about 50 educators from the county were among the attendees. "I've never been to an education conference where 4,000 people showed up."

Ocean View School District trustee Paul Chatman, who next month will be installed as the president of the California School Boards Association, called the focus on closing the achievement gap "a long time coming." He said the state cannot afford to wait 20 years to uplift the academic performance of blacks and Latinos — who combine to make up 55.4 percent of California's 6.3 million public school students.

"There is no one program that will solve the problem," Chatman said. "What it does take is the commitment to look for what works and what doesn't work, and to energize people around the issue."

In addition to presentations from national experts, the conference features more than 120 small-group presentations, most of which spotlight programs of proven effectiveness.

"If the data show that you are succeeding in closing the achievement gap, you are probably presenting at this summit," O'Connell said in his opening remarks.

Successful Simi school

Among those presenting Tuesday was Santa Susana High School Principal Pamela Carter, whose magnet school in Simi Valley has increased its state Academic Performance Index by more than 100 points and seen enrollment grow by a third since it implemented an innovative, academy-style program in 2002.

"If you want different results, you have to do things differently," Carter said. "You have to deliberately go about making change."

The school's ethnic makeup is 75 percent white, about the same as the city's two other high schools. Carter said that while an achievement gap still exists at her school, "Our gap has narrowed and our subgroups outperform their peers at other high schools in our area."

The key to the Santa Susana approach, she said, is to make education rigorous, relevant and individualized. Students can choose from among three schools within the school — academics, information technology and visual and performing arts. Within each school are 10 academies that allow students to focus their studies on areas of particular interest.

"The No. 1 complaint of all high school students is that high school is boring," Carter said. "The way to get around that is to make sure that what you offer is what those students are interested in. It's relevance, relevance, relevance."

Douglas Reeves, founder of the Boston-based Center for Performance Assessment and an internationally renowned education analyst, told attendees they will find no magic answers at the conference — and they shouldn't be looking for them.

Reeves said his most recent research, analyzing the performance of 129,000 students at 205 schools, shows "the equity gap can be closed" and educators must not accept conventional wisdom that "the lower the income level, the lower the achievement and there's nothing we can do about it. We are not potted plants."

The key to success, he said, is for schools to thoroughly implement a few effective strategies, many of which have been recognized for years.

"Get out of the complacency of saying that because you've been exposed to something you already did it."

Those strategies include, he said, such fundamental things as recognizing student achievement.

He noted studies have plotted the relationship between social popularity — a dominant concern of adolescents — and grade-point average. Among whites, popularity rises as grades increase, with a leveling off at 3.5. Among blacks, popularity drops sharply at a 3.0, and among Latinos, popularity plummets among students who achieve a 2.3 average or better.

Active recognition needed

"In the second and fourth grades, students of all ethnicities value high achievement," Reeves said. "By the seventh grade, low achievement becomes the role model, especially among boys — particularly black and Latino boys."

One reason, he said, is that middle and high schools stop actively recognizing student achievement.

"Middle schools and high schools that are closing the equity gap, they look like second grades," he said, because they post student assignments on classroom walls and take such steps as placing winning science fair projects in the school trophy case.

"Who holds the key to your school trophy case?" he asked. "It's the people in this room who decide what we value."