New Tack on School Reform

California began reforming its public schools five years ago with the help and support of educators, teachers, parents, public officials and civic-minded business leaders. After a period of low visibility, business has returned to the education issue with an important report aimed at further improving public schools. Some of the proposals are controversial and untested, but that is all the more reason to hear them out. The momentum of school reform depends on having teachers and others who are involved with schools day by day concentrate on issues that unite them with business leaders and not on those that divide them.

The central premise of the report from the California Business Roundtable is that “continued tinkering with the public schools will not solve the profound difficulties facing educators.” It is necessary to change the way in which schools operate, the report adds, by giving faculty members and administrators at each school more authority over their approach to teaching and by involving parents more directly.

The report recommends preschool programs for all children. It says that the state should step in when schools are failing in their mission. It would divide large schools into smaller schools-within-schools, encourage year-round schools and use exit tests to determine whether students have learned their lessons rather than rely on current requirements that students take specific courses. The report, prepared for a committee headed by Joseph F. Alibrandi of Whittaker Corp., also suggests that teachers go through an internship before they are hired permanently, be evaluated more rigorously and be better paid.

Bill Honig, the state superintendent of public instruction, says that he agrees with about 80% of the Roundtable report, although clearly he wishes that the business leaders had acknowledged the value of reforms that have already taken place. Gov. George Deukmejian and his staff are reserving judgment until they have studied the Roundtable report, along with one prepared by a governor’s commission and another that is expected from school administrators in a month or so.

One theme marks all of the reports that have been released so far: Local schools and their teachers need less control from outside and more say in educating their own students--at least until it is demonstrable that the schools are doing a poor job.

Among the controversial aspects of the Business Roundtable report is a proposal that some of the preschool programs that it recommends be provided by private firms under contract with the state. That will not go down smoothly with many Californians who believe that public schools should be public. The Roundtable suggests that students master their basic studies by age 16 and then choose to enter a specialized high school, a community college or a university at age 17 or 18. Honig thinks that the new, tougher standards for graduation deserve a chance to take hold before the high schools are drastically redesigned.

The governor’s commission concluded that “lack of resources” is not responsible for the poor performance by many schools. Similarly, the Round -table says, “The problem is not a lack of money.” There is no question that money alone is not the answer. But, for example, programs to improve teacher training have already proved themselves but cannot be put into force for lack of money from the state. For their part, the business leaders acknowledge that putting their proposals into effect would cost as much as $3 billion a year above the base education budget by the year 2000. Adding preschool programs alone would cost $1.8 billion.

The important thing about the Roundtable report is not whether it will satisfy teachers’ unions or Honig. The important thing is that the business community is now back in the arena of school reform in a major way, and has brought with it the ability of business leaders to achieve change. Reports are the easy part of a project. What lies ahead is drafting legislation, building coalitions, hammering out consensus between union and management, persuading the governor to break new ground, and finding the money to create new programs and to improve old ones. What is at stake is no less than the future of California itself.