State schools Supt. Jack O'Connell delivered his swan song today, citing "real gains" in academic achievement over his last seven years as the state's top educator but lamenting that financial support for schools is waning.
O'Connell, a former teacher who had a long career in the Legislature before becoming state schools superintendent in 2003, will be termed-out this year. He made his comments in his last "State of Education" address.
"California public school students have made real gains in achievement," O'Connell told an audience in a state auditorium. "Today, half of our students are proficient in English-language arts. Think about this: seven years ago only 35 percent of our students met this high bar. In mathematics, 46 percent of California's students are now at the proficient or above level - eleven points above where we were seven years ago."
However, he acknowledged that there's a stubborn "achievement gap" between white and Asian students on one side and Latino and black youngsters on the other, and lamented cutbacks in state aid to local school districts.
"Alll of this amazing work has been accomplished under the dark cloud of a state budget disaster that has left our schools reeling," O'Connell said. "In just the last two budget years, $18 billion was cut from our schools. The governor's current budget proposal would cut K-12 public education by another $2.4 billion, including cuts to theclass size reduction program, which I authored more than a decade ago. We already have seen class sizes increase across the state. School transportation and summer school programs have been canceled, and critical music, art, career technical education opportunities, and sports programs have been either scaled back or eliminated."
O'Connell called on the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pass a measure that would lower the voting requirement for local school parcel taxes from two-thirds to 55 percent, similar to the vote reduction on school bonds enacted about a decade ago.
O'Connell's full speech is available here.
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