Peter Schrag: Tight budgets needn't halt school reform planning

As expected, the promised bang of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's year of education has turned into a whimper.

In his State of the State speech earlier this month, and in a subsequent interview, he recognized that school reform would require more money (which for him is a large step forward), but, as must be plain to all, money is not to be had without a tax increase. Instead of reform, the governor proposes a $4 billion cut in education funds from schools whose funding is already among the lowest in the nation.

But that probably wasn't the most disheartening element of the governor's education nonprogram.

The lack of money offered an opportunity to plan rationally for long-term reform, especially on things such as universal preschool programs and improving schools serving poor and minority kids. But there wasn't a hint of any such intention.

Maybe that shouldn't have been surprising either. His office, which has to lead any real reform effort, has long suffered from a combination of indifference and incompetence on education issues. The State of the State speech reconfirmed that.

The governor has the benefit of two major ed-policy reports issued in the past year. Neither was mentioned in the speech. References to the sweeping recommendations of his own Committee on Education Excellence were buried in one of a handful of supplementary documents that were probably meant to be ignored.

To his credit, the governor recognized some real academic improvement in recent years, particularly in math and science. But his only "reform" proposal was a vague and hasty reference to turning around some of the 98 districts "that have persistently failed to educate children."

There was no concrete plan on how to do that. It would all be worked out with the state Board of Education and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell and rely on a group of District Assistance Intervention Teams that would diagnose the problems and work with the most troubled school systems to create successful shape-up strategies.

Where would these rescue squads come from? Long before the federal No Child Left Behind Law mandated intervention in struggling schools and districts, California's own accountability system required corrective action in consistently low-performing schools. Although state education officials judged that some of the doctoring worked, turning around the worst of California's chronically low-performing schools may be a challenge of an altogether different magnitude.

Significantly, because they're in financial trouble, some districts on California's "program improvement" list are already run by state-appointed trustees. Presumably the trustees' authority could be expanded, but adding a second major ailment to the things to be remedied won't make the job any easier.

Worse, since there's no legal authority anywhere to move teachers around, impose differential pay, or trade larger classes in some schools for smaller ones in others, much less remove the entire staff, the prospects are still slimmer.

Would the Democrats who dominate California's Legislature ever be willing – or legally able – to stare down the unions and empower the state to transfer every teacher in any of the troubled schools in Oakland or Fresno?

After years of neglecting it, the governor seems now to recognize the urgent need to create a data system to analyze and track student progress through the system, as his Committee on Education Excellence recommends.

But the committee's report provides a much broader array of ideas, many of which could be evaluated, tested and debated without new money. Among them:

• Debate and work out a fair funding system that's "based on students' different learning needs; provides teachers and administrators the resources to help all students succeed and is driven by incentives that promote student learning." The committee would eliminate many categorical programs and replace them with a weighted student funding formula based on individual needs.

• Find ways to shape up teacher and administrator training programs; develop career ladders based on "professional standards and student achievement growth," not just seniority and graduate credits; and study the best way of linking compensation to performance.

• Reform the convoluted state governance system, making the governor's secretary of education responsible for education policy and the Department of Education. The independently elected superintendent of public instruction would run the accountability system and become an independent school inspector.

Nobody ought to take the report as gospel, much less expect that all its recommendations are feasible, either as policy or as politics. There are too many interest groups and other players involved in the state's huge education enterprise.

Nor is it certain that California schools are doing as badly as the report suggests.

But the report is a crucial starting point for a school reform planning process that couldn't begin at a better time than the moment when there's little money. In prior years, when additional money became available, it was hastily thrown at whatever seemed fashionable and politically expedient. It might be nice for once to do some thinking before more money was spent.

About the writer:

• Peter Schrag can be reached at Box 15779, Sacramento, CA 95852-0779.