Trends in California ed bills
Lawmakers focus on bad behavior by students, teachers
Tomorrow is primary day, but last Friday also marked some significant yeas and nays. It was the final day for bills before the State Legislature to pass out of the house where they were introduced, also known as their house of origin.
One of the big trends in legislation this year is an effort to move the pendulum back from zero tolerance in schools to something more nuanced. Starting from the top, with State Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, lawmakers introduced nine bills.
As we reported in April, Senator Steinberg and other legislators were disturbed by a report called Suspended Education in California, which found that the harshest punishments were carried out with clear racial disparity.
Steinberg’s bill, SB 1235, requires schools with suspension rates above 25 percent, overall or for a specific racial or ethnic group, to implement a research-based alternative that holds the students accountable for their misbehavior but keeps them in school.
Sherry Griffith, a legislative advocate for the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA), finds some irony in the number of bills on the issue, and she urges caution.
“Last year we were in the zero tolerance for bullying, and this year it’s okay to keep them (disruptive and angry students) on campus unless it’s critical,” said Griffith.
ACSA has been fairly active this session in addressing the problem of misbehavior by teachers. The situation in Los Angeles Unified School District, in which a teacher accused of lewd acts on children was on the job for years before being removed from the classroom, has sparked numerous bills that would make it easier for school districts to take action against teachers accused of similar conduct. SB 1530, sponsored by Sen. Alex Padilla, adds “serious and egregious” conduct to the types of behavior that will get a teacher removed immediately.
“We support the Padilla bill. We can’t even imagine how anyone can’t support expediting the removal of a teacher in that situation,” said Griffith. “The funny thing is, schools are one of the safest places for kids to be, any time. And we have to keep that focus and not get lax about it.”
Building Student Success Task Force
After a year of meetings and public hearings, members of the Community College Student Success Task Force are watching to see what happens to SB 1456, carried by Sen. Alan Lowenthal. The Long Beach Democrat has introduced the Student Success Act, which begins to implement some of the recommendations in the Task Force report.
The bill covers two major sections of the report: funding priorities that promote student success and support, and requirements for Board of Governors fee waivers. The first part centers on putting money into services critical to students’ success at the front end, such as orientation, academic assessment, and helping students develop an education plan. Community College Vice Chancellor for Government Relations Marlene Garcia says there’s abundant research showing that one of the “key factors in student success in college is having a goal and having a plan.”
The second part is a bit more controversial: It would tighten eligibility for Board of Governors fee waivers. If students fall below a 2.0 GPA for two consecutive terms, they lose their waiver. “For the first time we’re saying students need to meet satisfactory academic standards,” said Garcia.
Requests for waivers have been rising along with community college fees. About 62 percent of students receive the waivers, and that could rise to 70 percent within the next couple of years.
While she understands that this is a philosophical issue for some, especially low-income students, Garcia said the purpose isn’t to separate students from their Board of Governors waivers. “It’s to signal to students the kind of behavior that’s likely to lead them to success. A GPA below 2.0 is not putting you on a track toward success.”
Status of key education bills as of June 4, 2012
(The following is the first page of a multi-page chart. Click here for entire chart)
I need confirmation here. 62% of community college students have a GPA below 2.0 for two consecutive terms? Or, are there additional circumstances in which to apply for a waiver? A 2.0 GPA in community college (I am familiar with them, and their standards) is barely scraping through assignments, so what is the point of allowing students to continue to attend when that is their level of achievement? UC and CSU systems have more stringent transfer GPA requirements, but it is not just the numerical requirement that is the issue. A student at the 2.0 GPA is not mastering the content that will lead to success in the 4-year system.
Anyway … I really hope that I have misread/misunderstood the 62%.
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“Sherry Griffith, a legislative advocate for the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA), finds some irony in the amount of bills on the issue, and she urges caution.
“Last year we were in the zero tolerance for bullying, and this year it’s okay to keep them (disruptive and angry students) on campus unless it’s critical,” said Griffith.”
I think that’s a pretty shortsighted view, the idea that those are your only two choices. It is possible to isolate problem kids away from the population on the same campus, and I think there’s value in flexibility to consider options along those lines for suspensions. The idea that sending an aggressor home to play video games for a day or a week is going to improve a bullying situation seems unrealistic.
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Sue,
About 62% of community college students receive Board of Governors fee waivers. I don’t know how many of them earn below a 2.0 GPA. However, the overall purpose of the recommendations in the Student Success Task Force report is to improve student outcomes. The task force, and the legislature if it approves Sen. Lowenthal’s bill, hope that by tying the waivers to academic achievement it will provide an incentive for students to do better. That’s just one of about two dozen recommendations in the task force report aimed at increasing the number of students who complete their community college education by earning an Associates Degree, transferring to a four-year college, or earning a license or certificate to work in a skilled industry.
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Hi Kathryn:
Thank you for the clarification. It sounds as if there are various efforts being made to encourage improved student achievement at the community college level.
el: I agree that there are many more options available, but it is of concern that there is so much legislative activity, only because the decision-making for one option can disrupt something else that was working.
The underlying need is to disaggregate the data, perform a detailed review of the causes of the racial disparity, and then address the many underlying causes directly. I remember a fight on our campus (gang members came to settle an off campus issue) that resulted in a lot of students of one racial group being suspended (some were also criminally charged) for one event. That definitely skewed our data for the year. I once inherited a student who had over 30 separate suspensions in middle school. That school, to its credit, had kept him and worked with him (he really improved with help, albeit often in a more isolated classroom). Had the school expelled him back to his home district (where the roots of the problems lay w/gang affiliations) that school would have enjoyed much improved racial statistics. The complexity of suspensions and race and poverty just cannot be addressed with sweeping legislation – especially when the money to help has been slashed. Unless one has worked in schools that face these complex decisions it is difficult to grasp the reality of daily decisions, and swinging pendulums don’t create stability.
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Kathryn, this is an excellent and useful tool. Thank you for collecting and posting the information.
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Sue: I agree with you and I think it’s critically important for our legislature to be careful how they react to particular incidents. It is too easy for them to make a rule that might improve one perceived situation and tie the hands of districts elsewhere that have quietly found solutions that work well for their particular challenges. Bills can pass without schools even being aware of them until they’re a done deal.
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@Sue, this is such a perfect set of examples of the reasons simplistic readings of statistics are a bad idea, and the reasons that well-intentioned legislation by poorly informed and uncomprehending lawmakers is likely to have problematic unintended consequences.
Regarding the baseline GPA issue — if I’m correct, the Silicon Valley Education Foundation has been a primary promoter of the notion that all students must go to college or they and their K-12 educators are branded failures; and that students must be given no other options in their K-12 education. That position is in direct conflict with the notion that students in college must maintain a minimum GPA. Is there any discussion of rethinking all this?
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