Jerry Brown’s fresh start: Local control tied to accountability
Gov. Jerry Brown made two important statements about K-12 education in his State of the State speech on Wednesday. First, it is very important to have a strong accountability system that makes student achievement the focal point of our schools. Second, within that accountability system, local districts should have discretion to decide how to provide a quality education. Both represent an encouraging move toward improving the embarrassing state of California schools.
California educates one-eighth of all students in the U.S., and its ranking at the bottom of the states in terms of math and reading helps to explain why U.S. students are not competitive internationally. In global terms, California ranks at the level of Greece and Russia – hardly a level of performance that can fuel the innovation of Silicon Valley in the future.
California has a long history of trying to improve schools from Sacramento – through a mountain of detailed regulations, through an enormous number of categorical spending programs, and through a twisted and centralized finance system that precludes local decision making. The governor would cut through much of the tangled history of funding and move to a method based on individual students, allowing for any special needs caused by poverty and language. The governor has also made an important proposal to scrap most of the restrictions on specific categorical program funding in favor of local decision making based on local capacity and needs.
Freeing up local decision making only makes sense if all districts are working in the direction of improving student achievement. That is where the accountability system comes in. Student achievement that is regularly measured, reported, and used in decision making by districts is a necessary addition. In other words, loosen up on “how” but keep the focus on “what.”
The details will of course be important. The best sounding plans can easily be thwarted, thus maintaining the developing-country level of performance.
In reality, these ideas should be thought of as just a starting point. There should be wholesale deletion of the myriad regulations about how schools are run. It is important for the state to reward success, instead of the more common habit of putting more funding into failure. Districts that demonstrate large growth in student learning should get additional resources. And, such an idea should filter down to the level of the individual educator.
One aspect of this would be freeing up local spending options so that local residents can enter into judgments about the quality of schools. (While there is a long history of funding litigation in the state, it does not preclude local choices where the state can easily work to equalize any inequities arising from tax base differences). In other words, let the districts have flexibility to do good things.
In sum: Bravo! Good start. There is much work to be done.
Eric Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. He has been a leader in the development of economic analysis of educational issues. His newest book, Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses: Solving the Funding-Achievement Puzzle in America’s Public Schools, describes how improved school finance policies can be used to meet our achievement goals.
“It is important for the state to reward success, instead of the more common habit of putting more funding into failure. Districts that demonstrate large growth in student learning should get additional resources. And, such an idea should filter down to the level of the individual educator.”
in other words, there is nothing lacking at our schools now and directing resources into low achievers is a waste of money. go back to providing more state funding to schools and districts with high PEL and socioeconomic levels.
Finally, I’d really like to understand what ‘large growth in student learning’ means.
LAUSD African American CST math proficiency rates in 7th grade are up over 400% from 2003 to 2011. Hispanic 7th rates up over 200% (and thats not even disaggregating for the change in hispanic population during that time). PEL of no high school graduation had an increase in CST ELA proficiency rates of at least 100% in 9 out of 10 grades (the other was 93%) and half those grades improved between 150% and 210%.
Does that count as ‘large growth’?
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Economics right now is in a dire mess. Your colleagues and your profession have failed miserably. The magnitude of the errors in your discipline’s predictive and prescriptive models have cost this nation trillions of dollars in lost wealth. This nation has been leveled. Frankly, if physics were economics we would all be dead right now.
What other academic discipline has made such massive claims about predictive powers and robust theory and then FAILED ENTIRELY to predict simple events even one day ahead of their occurrence?
Right now in South Africa, meteorologists are facing prison time and large fines for inaccurate weather forecasts. Why not start that right here in California? What could your institution do to push that forward?
To add a bit of humor to this piece why not consider this: The next economist that is wrong ought to face some brig time and a fine. What do good economists like you have to fear. You should welcome the chance to show that your accuracy rate is above 90%.
Here is a wonderful idea. Drop your degrees and your credentials.
Post your ACCURACY RATE.
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The Governor’s plan for “weighted student funding,” sending more education dollars to districts that have more “needy” (based on EL and ED populations) students is intriguing. Obviously, students of greater need require more educational supports to have greater chance of playing on a level academic field.
As noted in a recent TopEd piece by Kathryn Baron (1/13/12) on the recently published Quality Counts report by Ed Week, compared to most states, California already does a pretty good job in this area: “The state’s…average means that poorer districts receive more funding than wealthy ones on a weighted per-pupil basis.” This does not mean that there are not some significant differences in school funding under California’s “revenue limit income” funding program that favor wealthier areas. If one takes into account the per-pupil funding available to so called “basic aid” districts the disparities are even greater (and even more unfair).
The problem is that California is relatively “equitable” in how it underfunds the majority of its students. The Quality Counts report places this state at 47th of the 50 states in per-pupil spending some $3,000 below the national average in “adjusted” dollars. The RAND Corp., as well as others, cite California’s “unadjusted” dollars per-pupil sinking below the national average in the mid-1980s and sinking ever lower ever since.
However admirable the Governor’s weighted funding plan might be, and it is admirable in principle, this does not seem to be the appropriates time to take it under consideration. Being 47th in per-pupil funding may well be the high point for some time in the future. Even if the governor’s proposed tax initiative passes it is not likely to improve the immediate school funding situation.
The new funding plan proposes to set a base of $6,000 per student with enhancements based on the number of EL and ED students. (A cautionary note from the Department of Finance suggests the $6K”base” may need to be “scaled back.”) This new variable, and possible cut in funding, is to be calculated by districts already being asked to budget for further cuts next year on top of the cuts from the last few years. The weighted plan does allow for implementation over time, but what are the prospects for improved funding “over time?” After all, as RAND has indicated, this state slipped below the national average in per-pupil spending over 25 years ago. Where are there signs, other than the proposed Millionaire’s Tax Initiative that will plug some holes in the eviscerated education budget , that the state is ready to live up to its obligations to its public schools and children? After all, it could be logically argued that California, having among the highest cost-of-living/cost-of-providing-services in the nation, should have both adjusted and unadjusted dollars per-pupil education expenditures well above the national average.
It would seem advisable that California commit itself, publicly and legislatively, to bringing its education spending up to the top tier in the nation, reflecting its international ranking as the 9th largest economy in the world and the nation’s wealthiest state, prior to embarking on a reorganization of its student funding system. Only then can all schools districts be “held harmless,” and real improvements to educational programs as well as improved student achievement take place. It takes only a casual perusal of the results of the United State’s only nationally administered test, the NAEP, to see that the highest performing states are the highest states in per-pupil funding. Education spending counts! (I might add they are the states with the highest concentrations of unionized teachers also.)
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