School Reform Report Has Many Talking, Including State Senator Dave Cox

Sunday, 18 March 2007 23:35

School Reform Report Has Many Talking, Including State Senator Dave Cox

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California schools are in need of sweeping, comprehensive reforms if the state is to raise the quality of education and student-achievement rates, according to a long-awaited research project that rigorously assesses how K-12 schools are governed and financed. The structural problems are so deep-seeded that more funding and small, incremental interventions are unlikely to make a difference unless matched with a commitment to wholesale reform states the report. The 22 studies, requested by a bipartisan group of state policy-makers, will be released in two parts. The first half was unveiled in Sacramento last week by Stanford University researchers, state lawmakers and representatives from the foundations that underwrote the nearly $3 million project.

Friday, the second release focused on projected cost estimates for providing a quality education for California’s 6.8 million school-age children. “One of the key questions we were asked to address in these studies was, ‘What does California school finance and governance look like today?’” said Susanna Loeb, an associate professor at Stanford University and the leader of the Getting Down to Facts research project. “We found a very conclusive answer:

California’s K-12 system is in need of significant overhaul. Creating high achievement standards and strong standards-based assessment and accountability systems are a good start, but fundamental governance reforms are still needed.” “Today’s studies need to be taken very seriously by everyone in the education debate,” said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. “If we hope to give our children the world-class education they deserve, then we need real education reform. I have long advocated for more transparency in our schools, more flexibility for our education leaders, and more information for our parents. This is just a starting point for what I hope will be a renewed focus in the Legislature on increasing student achievement with needed reform. “These sobering findings serve as a wake-up call for all of us — politicians, business leaders and educators alike,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, one of the research requestors. “The message from this research is clear: we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves and find a way forward together if we are to return California’s once-celebrated education system back to excellence. Our children deserve nothing less.”

Among the key Findings are that the current finance system is deeply flawed and contributes to the problem. California’s education system is not making the most effective use of its current resources. California’s schools may need more resources to meet student-achievement goals, but, to have an impact, increased funding must go hand-in-hand with reforms• Highly prescriptive finance and governance policies thwart local schools and districts in their efforts to meet the needs of their students and promote higher achievement. • Current teacher policies do not let state and local administrators make the best use of the pool of potential teachers or adequately support current teachers. State Senator Dave Cox has now weighed in as well.