California is achieving nation’s biggest education reforms. Recalling Newsom endangers them
When Gov. Gavin Newsom ran for office three years ago, his principal campaign pledge was to create a hugely ambitious “cradle to career” system of education in California.
“Our role begins when babies are still in the womb and it doesn’t end until we’ve done all we can to prepare for a quality job and successful career,” he said at the time.
He called it “the California Promise.”
Remarkably, Newsom has made major progress toward implementing this agenda — admittedly helped by an unexpected state budget surplus and a massive infusion of federal relief funds.
Yet these reforms have received almost no attention during the recall campaign.
His reforms come on top of eight years of landmark reforms instituted by former Gov. Jerry Brown designed to narrow long-standing achievement gaps.
As a result of their combined efforts, California now has in place what may well be the most comprehensive education reform effort in the nation.
It is not a “single bullet” strategy. Rather, it targets the multiple danger points in a child’s life that can sabotage a student’s education and career aspirations.
In contrast to this multi-dimensional approach, Newsom’s principal GOP opponents have put forward a simplistic and predictable platform, echoing former President Trump’s education agenda focusing on “school choice.” This includes taxpayer funded vouchers or education savings accounts, along with more charter schools — despite California already having over 1,300 of them, serving over 1 in 10 public school students.
The candidates also oppose the Newsom administration’s policies requiring masks in schools, and that school staff, including teachers, be vaccinated.
This week, Larry Elder, the radio talk show leading in the polls among all recall candidates, said he doesn’t think “government has any role for sex education in our schools.”
Ignored by Newsom’s opponents are a slew of reforms he championed that have great promise but need more time to take root. These include screening children for early childhood traumas and expanding paid family leave so children can get the care they need at their most vulnerable age. He’s put California on track to offer universal, no-cost preschool for all 4-year-olds by expanding the state’s ”transitional kindergarten” program.
On the equally perilous “career” end of the education continuum, Newsom has allocated $1 billion in increased aid for older students who, up to now, were not eligible to receive Cal Grants. He has targeted funds to allow first-time, full-time students to attend community colleges tuition free for two years.
He is also set in motion a plan to establish college savings accounts for every low-income K-12 student — some 3.7 million of them.
To tackle the teacher shortage crisis, Newsom is carrying out a campaign pledge to recruit, retain and train teachers — and place them in the schools that need them the most.
To help integrate all of these elements, Newsom has responded to pleas from researchers and advocates to create a “cradle to career” data system that could be used to measure the success of these initiatives — and to help parents and students prepare for their education
But if Newsom is ousted on Sept. 14, it’s likely that progress on at least some of the reforms will be slowed, interrupted or undone.
It’s only slightly reassuring that whoever replaces Newsom would likely only be in office for a year. California’s education reforms could be fully embraced again in 2023 when the next governor, presumably a Democrat, would take office following the next general election in November 2022.
But California’s nearly 10 million students enrolled in pre-school through college can’t afford this delay.
Any retreat from the state’s reform effort has the potential to prolong the inequities too many children and their families have endured — inequities that we know have only been deepened by the pandemic.