Enough reports, studies and blueprints: It’s time to act on them
Public schools in California are in a state of crisis and our students are suffering the consequences. Our children deserve and require more attention, resources and support. While there has been no shortage of plans and policies for what our schools need, there seems to be a lack of political will to actually institute the needed reforms.
Last week, as an example, California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson, published a comprehensive and reasonable series of recommendations coined “Blueprint for Great Schools.” Torlakson gathered a 59-member Transition Advisory Team, made up of teachers, parents, administrators, labor and business leaders, with input from thought-leaders such as Professor Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University School of Education and David Plank, executive director of PACE, to craft the document. The recommendations address finance, curriculum and technology, to name a few, and the “Blueprint” could revolutionize the California public education system.
Nevertheless, Torlakson’s “Blueprint” is not particularly divergent from other reports put together in recent years by consortiums of the best-schooled in California education policy. For instance, “Getting Down to Facts,” an independent research project requested by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Committee on Education Excellence in 2007, was authored by many of the experts who worked on Torlakson’s “Blueprint” and outlined many of the same reforms and improvements. This 2007 report received, and continues to receive, many accolades from policy makers, legislators and education advocates.
The problem seems to occur in implementing these ideas. In 2008, Assemblywoman Julia Brownley attempted to create a committee focused on making these recommendations a reality; her bill flew through both the state Senate and the state Assembly on its way to becoming a law, only to be vetoed by the sponsor of the 2007 report, Gov. Schwarzenegger.
During the past eight months since Torlakson took office and commissioned this “Blueprint,” California’s K-12 public education system has taken several large steps backward. School days have been shed, talented teachers have been lost, and the state’s achievement level is among the country’s bottom 10 percent. Moreover, California’s current budget will prove truly disastrous for schools wiping out even more money from schools if budgeted revenue targets are not achieved. In summary, California’s Legislature claims to value education, but the lack of action since 2007 tells a different story.
As a parent of three young kids in the California public school system, I am pleading with the Legislature, the public, and my fellow parents: enough planning, enough studies. It is time to BUILD! We don’t need more ideas – we need to put the plans into action. So let’s get our hard hats on and get to work. NOW!
Crystal Brown is co-founder and president of Educate Our State, a parent-led, grassroots, statewide campaign fighting for high-quality public education in California. She is a Bay Area native, 17-year resident of San Francisco, and mother of three young girls. She has served on the PTA Board at Sherman Elementary School and in early-2010, she and five other “PTA moms” organized a 1,200-person town hall meeting, Public Education–Funding Our Future, looking for solutions to the local school funding crisis.
I agree! Something needs to be done and soon! My son’s kindergarten class has 39 students in it!! The teacher is left by herself with no assistants. She begs the parents every morning to volunteer in the class because she desperately needs the help! It is not right to sacrifice the education of our future generations to make amends for the miscalculations/greed of our past and present.
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Ms. Brown is exactly correct. Over the years we have seen plans developed, reviewed, recommended, and then filed away somewhere never to be seen again. As a university professor at California State Fresno (Doctoral and Masters Degree classes in Educational Leadership), I want my students to move beyond planning to “Praxis”…the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas!! (definition from Wikipedia)…in other words, talk is cheap…do something!
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“[T]he state’s achievement level is among the country’s bottom 10 percent.” Do you have a citation for this?
Given the intransigence of both Republican legislators and CTA, there is very little, if anything, that can be done to improve student outcomes in California.
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Perhaps unintentionally I think the blueprint captures exactly why action has not been forthcoming. The report clearly spells out the desire for highly qualified teachers, but then also recommends rationing those teachers. (OK, they used nicer words. I’m also assuming the committee that drafted this report felt the recommendation reflected the real situation of the education system in CA). This is an acknowledgement that this problem can not be solved instantaneously, so a transition program involving comprise is needed. Coming up with a transition program that can actually garner enough support to succeed is harder (what an understatement) than developing a report like the “Blueprint”. So I’m suggesting that as nice as action would be the reason none has happened is that the plans we have are at least not sufficient and perhaps not the plans we need.
I suspect that eliminating term limits might help us restore the political skill and taste for compromise in Sacramento that might actually help with this problem.
Here are the parts of the report I refer to:
There is growing recognition that expert teachers and school leaders are perhaps the most important resource for improving student learning, and the highest-achieving nations make substantial investments in them. A McKinsey study of 25 of the world’s school systems, including 10 of the top performers, found that investments in teachers and teaching are central to improving student outcomes. They found that the top school systems emphasize (1) getting the right people to become teachers; (2) developing them into effective instructors; and (3) ensuring that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child.9T
Equalize the distribution of well-qualified and effective teachers by leveraging more equitable salaries and working conditions, using service scholarships and National Board stipends to recruit excellent teachers to high-need schools, and — because leaders are the single most important element in retaining teachers — developing strong leaders for all schools.
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Haven’t read the report but understand the issues well. Biggest roadblock to meaningful progress, the teachers’ union. Good teachers realize that bad teachers are holding back their compensation. Parents and students know who the bad teachers are – frequently the teachers coasting to a fat retirement package by showing movies in class. Principals are no longer even trying to get rid of those bad teachers. Unions make firing those bad teachers nearly impossible – takes years and costs tens-of-thousands of dollars. We cannot hope to attract and retain quality teachers without more money. Parcel taxes are a good way to keep funding local and out of Sacramento’s hands, but schools must show results before homeowners will vote in favor of those taxes. To show results schools have to fire bad teachers and reward the good ones, not based on years of “service”, but based on performance (just like the private sector). Give principals more time to evaluate teachers, give them the ability to fire a teacher today (just like the private sector), and reward teachers and principals for good job performance. Again, only roadblock, the unions that are protecting that small percentage of bad teachers.
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In response to LK, it’s not clear if it is unions that are holding back teacher compensation, or if relatively low teacher compesnation is making unionization possible. If teacher unionization in California disappeared tomorrow and merit pay were mandated across the state, it is not clear that two-thirds of California legislators would support higher taxes to increase teacher salaries across the board, which would make it possible to retain only the best teachers.
Moreoever, if the percentage of “bad” teachers is small, as you suggest, it’s hard to argue that a small percentage of teachers are preventing all California students from attaining better outcomes.
California needs both better accountability at all levels–school boards, superintenents, principals, teachers, parents, and students–and the ability to offer a total compensation package that will attract the best and the brightest into the education profession.
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LK:
Right, the “private sector” has been doing so well lately. What a model.
The problem here is, as been stated so often, the highest achieving states in the US (NAEP), with the highest spending per student and the highest paid teachers are all the most unionized states. This would be in the northeast sector.
The lowest spending, lowest paid, lowest performing states are in the southeast sector where teacher’s collective bargaining is against the law.
CA’s teacher pay is near the top in the US in dollars unadjusted for cost-of-living. When adjusted for cost-of-living teacher pay here is average at best. See the RAND Corp. in various reports.
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Do principals really need more than two years to decide if a teacher is a bad teacher?
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@el, that seems to be part of the discussion. Do we want teachers that are “not bad” or do we want teachers that are “good”? And as the blueprint spells out we will likely have to suffice with teachers that are “not bad”, but does that mean we will have to suffice with them indefinitely? If we invest more money in training and attracting more “good” teachers, what can we do to ensure that those teachers actually get to make an impact on our schools?
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Since my kids tend to like teachers that other kids don’t, that raises the additional question — what if a teacher is “bad” for some students and “good” for others?
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