The Public Policy
Fool’s Gold?
Exploring education reform in California.
(Page 2 of 2)
The initiative and referendum process that has captured the rest of California’s budget into the hands of interest groups is also bedeviling the school system. A three-decades-old referendum requires the state to spend at least one-third of tax dollars on schools, spurring spending booms and restricting the kind of fiscal flexibility needed for school reform. A long-term problem lies with the state’s teacher pension fund, which is mired in a $22 billion deficit; in August, Fitch Ratings cut the pension’s bond rating from AAA to AA-plus. Another $16 billion in unfunded retirement healthcare spending also looms on the horizon.
Meanwhile California’s politicians spend more time on sparring matches than on policymaking. Additional funding for CALPADS was one reason behind last year’s overwrought budget battle between Schwarzenegger and the legislature. Schwarzenegger and Superintendent Jack O’Connell have had their own run-ins, including a battle over revamping the state report card.
Money has a funny way of focusing the mind, and the interest in obtaining the Race to the Top funds has led to quick action by both Schwarzenegger — who called a special session of the legislature just for this purpose — and the legislature. Yet the state may still not get the money. Even with recent overtures, the state lags behind its peers in the seriousness of addressing its low graduation rates and abysmal teacher quality. Then there is the politics. “The thought of the teachers union, school districts, the business community and other key stakeholders getting on the same page… is hard to believe without some serious leadership,” according to Manwaring.
But for the first time since the birth of the charter school movement, California may actually stop lagging behind the curve. And possibly, get ahead of it.
About the Author
RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (30) | Leave a comment
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Pingback| 10.16.09 @ 7:06AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Fool's Gold? [spectator.org] on Tops links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Eric Cartman | 10.16.09 @ 9:38AM
I love it. The Liberal scum who have transformed California into a cesspool of illegal aliens who can't speak English and plop their brood out for the rest of us to pay for is finding it difficult to train the hordes of future gang members and leaf blower operators they now have in their midst. And they think money is the problem ! Amazing!
Alan Brooks| 10.17.09 @ 11:02PM
and if you even ATTEMPT to discuss the illegals, you are a "racist."
Even my goldfish was racist-- I had to flush him down the commode this morning.
Eric Cartman | 10.19.09 @ 9:58AM
Great! Another illegal goldfish sneaking into our sewer system!
Houston Rao| 10.16.09 @ 12:44PM
Call me a cynic but I would hold my breath to see if it is indeed true reform or just an action to get their hands on some free money. The devil is in the details. Yes, parents may have the option of choosing schools outside of the district but there can always be bureaucratic hurdles and paperwork to stymie them.
Pat| 10.16.09 @ 1:33PM
Before a reader exhibits the desired Pavlovian response to this well written article, let's mull over some of the facts not mentioned. Detroit's school system is equally as bad as those in L. A. or New York City - only 25% of Detroit's high school freshmen class will actually graduate in 4 years - and, no, it's not because illegal immigrants and their school age kids are sneaking over from Windsor, Canada or swimming the Rio Detroit to disappear into the slums off Jefferson Ave. When rational folks point out that not all high school kids in S.E. Michigan are dropping out at the rate of 3 for every 1 that graduates, the normal reaction is to rush forward with "politically acceptable" excuses to vigorously defend our American concept of blessed plurality.
And when rational folks point out there are few basic differences between the good schools and the bad ones, they're answered with a chorus of "official" excuses to rationalize failure in the "bad" schools - "disadvantaged students", "not enough money", "class sizes too large", "not enough special ed or remedial programs" - another 50 excuses could be added to that short list.
But does that really explain the failure of these ghetto schools - or are these official excuses simply repeated endlessly to enforce the concept of America's strength through our glorious plurality? A teacher, a room with desks, chalkboards, students, books, lesson plans - common factors that somehow produce widely divergent results dependent on where the school is located.
To avoid examining whether "diversity" or "plurality" is as great a social strength as it's cracked up to be, we nitpick each common factor to divine why Detroit's schools consistently fail and Birmingham MI. schools consistently succeed - although they're only 4 to 12 miles apart in geographical distances.
But we can't clear the chess pieces from the board and start a new game - we're stuck with the folks we have, we're stuck with the "bad" students that Detroit's society produces in seemingly endless numbers - so when you can't change the players, the only option is to fiddle with the system vainly looking for the right combination of politically acceptable band-aids that will "solve" the problem once and for all.
Eric Cartman | 10.16.09 @ 2:04PM
Having been a student in the Detroit public school system from 10 - 12 years of age until moving to Lathrup Village (when it was still a good place to live), I know the underlying problem with it: the Black attitude toward Whites, learning, victimization, and family disintegration due to - wait for it - Liberal policies! Welfare, bussing, victimization attitude, etc.
LA schools, on the other hand, suffer from other Liberal policy foolishness. Most notable - illegal immigrant acceptance from every welfare and state "gimme" program imaginable to English as a Second Language debacle that makes it possible for the future leaf-blower operator to read the little "Pull" sign on his Briggs & Straton or the Bail Bonds advertising on the jail wall.
Both locals may be different, but they are infected with the same virus: Stupid Liberalism.
TQ| 10.17.09 @ 3:11PM
How about the government just get out of the education business altogether? Problem solved. Is it really a surprise that state run education is a complete disaster? And are you seriously suggesting that the state can fix the problems caused by, umm, the state being involved in education? Get rid of the labor monopoly of teacher's unions and get the state completely out of K-12 education (hell, the UC system ought to be able to run privately too) and then this nonsense all goes away.
Also, it isn't a problem if students don't graduate. They can either get a job with no education or they can't. It isn't the state's problem to make sure everyone makes good life decisions. If we didn't have minimum wage laws those high school drop-outs could be employed. Hell, they could be employed now if they went out into the fields and worked agricultural jobs getting paid under the table. Again, the state isn't responsible for ensuring the upward mobility of the children of illegal immigrants or any other segment of the Californian population. Is it really such a boon to society for all of Californians youth to go to college and be fed leftist propaganda for four years? All that does is increase the number of voters who believe in victimology, in statism, in cradle-to-grave government care, and all the other nonsense that has plagued California (and the rest of the US) for decades. The best thing is obviously to get those people out of the university system, in the real world earning money and learning the virtues of capitalism first hand.
Or yeah, I guess we could quibble about various ways the state could get more involved in it's own insanity.
Marc Jeric| 10.17.09 @ 3:50PM
Show me a strong union and I will show a dead or dying industry - automobile, steel, textile, electronics, apparel, etc. Not to forget the teacher unions and other government employee unions - but those jobs cannot be outsourced. The education system that 40 years ago was the wonder of the world is now an utter disaster. College entrants are given remedial courses in reading and writing! All government employee unions should be outlawed - they are a conspiracy against the people.
In Europe the school systems are based on this principle of natural triage:
1) Those pupils who cannot pass the basic requirements of literacy after 4 years of elementary schooling are allowed to repeat the fourth year 3 times; if they fail that is the end of their education and they can apply as apprentices for cleaning streets and common building areas, or attendants in public restrooms, etc.
2) those who pass can then go to high schools, where after 4 years there is a serious triage by means a small bac exam; those who pass can continue, those who fail can go to industrial apprentice schools to become factory workers, welders, installers, carpenters, etc.
3) At the end of the 8th class of high school there is a formal bac exam that includes essays in own language and in a foreign language, math, physics, chemistry, geography, history. Those who pass are allowed to compete for university by additional exams (about 40-50% pass); others become clerks, salesmen, reps, bank employees, or after taking specialized courses can become law aides, accountants, etc., or can join the military. University students finish their studies successfully between 40-80%; in my class in engineering only 40% got their diplomas after 4 years of classes plus 1-2 years of work on the final project.
This American system based of self-esteem and the false but politically correct conviction that everybody is capable of university education is a disaster for the country - economically and intellectually. Courses in gender, class, race etc. grievances are a total waste of time and effort. Colleges od education produce an unending stream of politically correct imbeciles incapable of teaching. Lack of discipline enforcement in class formally endorsed by teacher unions is a mark of criminal neglect. Incompetent teachers are protected by union rules; school boards are in majority composed of teachers.
A recipe for total failure!
Yosemeti Sam| 10.18.09 @ 10:20AM
OKkkkkkkkkkkk.
A given, is that California is an entrenched liberal strangling socio-experimental stronghold - writ large!
So, how cum this wreckage of affectedly institutionalized nanny education is thought now
to be strangely saliently amiss?
Liberals don't use drawing boards - they rely on
sand. The easier to conveniently wash away when their socio-experiments fail - Big Time.
UpChuck.Liberals| 10.18.09 @ 9:11PM
g eym a produk of the kaliforneyea skool sistem and eye'm doyin gest ok. meye selve esteem is perfick.
Now if they'd cut the crap and actually teach something .....
This goes for the rest of the posters here that really need spell check or a education to use it.
BTW Cum is spelled COME in the context you were using it.
Real American| 10.19.09 @ 1:23AM
Public education in California is run by liberal Democrats. Nuff said.
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