Learning Matters: Education challenges are nothing new

Anxiety is on the march, and schools are feeling it. While budgetary uncertainty is a constant in California, where schools are so dependent on fluctuating income tax revenues, current worries are broader and deeper.

They reach to Washington, D.C. and to speculation about a president who favors privatizing schools, who doesn’t like the state standards (California’s version of the Common Core), and who threatens to disrupt the lives of many of our students and their families.

It feels almost irresponsible to encourage parents to “keep calm and carry on,” but insofar as their children’s daily lives are concerned, it may be the best approach.

I’m reminded of the 1987 earthquake, when, after the shaking stopped, I walked our daughter to Mrs. Mauerman’s kindergarten class. I wasn’t sure what I’d find — whether school would be in session or the teacher at work.

But there she was, as dependable as ever, her students sitting on the rug in front of her, listening and responding to her cheery voice. School that day seemed the perfect place to be.

In the 30 years since our eldest started kindergarten, I don’t recall a time when public education hasn’t faced a significant challenge. PTAs and school boards have never lacked for issues, not because schools are failing — they’re not — but because public education is democratic and dynamic.

As populations and public opinions change, so do schools. Schools and their teachers are forever adjusting to new curricula, technology, policies and expectations for students.

We’ve applauded reforms one year — like high school exit exams or Prop 98, the education funding floor that became more of a ceiling — and struggled with them later.

Parents and teachers across the state celebrated class-size reduction, then watched with disappointment and frustration as class sizes crept back up — even as many educators acknowledged that smaller class size alone hadn’t been the hoped-for path to improved student achievement.

We’ve worried about the problems of population growth — when half of Glendale’s elementary schools went year-round — only to encounter the even more vexing problem of decreasing enrollment and its negative effects on per-pupil funding and teachers’ jobs.

So given the volatility that exists outside the control of our schools, it’s worth doing what we can do in areas where we have influence, such as putting the brakes on ill-advised legislation in Sacramento. I’m sure our newly installed state legislators would appreciate hearing from informed constituents as they weigh any current or future educational “fixes” for society’s problems.

Just last week the L.A. Times reported on two proposed bills to “…help teach Californians to think more critically about the news they read online.” (“Education legislation aims to combat the power of fake news,” Jan. 13.)

Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) introduced AB 155 to require the development of curriculum standards for “civic online reasoning.” On the state Senate side, Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) proposed SB 135 to require the state board of education to develop “a framework for a ‘media literacy’ curriculum.”

Though I share these legislators’ concerns about the rise of fake news, I wouldn’t jump to putting a new law on the books to deal with the issue. Critical-thinking skills are already high on our schools’ agendas, and curriculum exists across a variety of subject areas to help students sort fact from fiction.

I understand the temptation to create new education requirements to benefit the public good. I have my own list of subjects I wish were taught more effectively in schools, including music, financial literacy, and more life-saving health information.

But there’s opportunity enough within school districts to enhance learning without resorting to statewide legislation for every issue that hits the news. Let’s not make education harder than it is.

And please, let’s keep public education public.

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JOYLENE WAGNER served on the Glendale Unified School Board from 2005 to 2013. Email her at jkate4400@aol.com.