Reform Plan Urges ‘Character Education’ in Elementary Grades

An elementary school reform plan to be unveiled today calls for adding “character education” to the curriculum, challenging students with more sophisticated material and finding more effective ways to teach all youngsters in California’s increasingly diverse population.

A 38-member statewide task force of educators spent two years on “It’s Elementary!,” billed by Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig as a “blueprint for reform in California’s elementary schools,” which enroll nearly 3 million pupils. The final piece of a four-part master plan for overhauling the state’s public schools, the document for the elementary grades makes 32 recommendations for change, including some that will not require additional funds.

“The student population, society’s demands on education and our knowledge about what works in the elementary classroom are all changing,” said Honig, who is scheduled to release the report at news conferences at the Capitol and at Thomas Edison Elementary School in Glendale.

Despite improvements in such areas as textbooks, curriculum and staff development, Honig added, “it’s very clear that we have not sufficiently challenged our youngsters in these early grades when they have such incredible energy and potential for learning.” He was referring to recent research about how much young children can learn.

Honig said he is especially pleased with the document’s emphasis on character education and examples of ways to demonstrate moral behavior throughout the curriculum. It reflects the gradual return of efforts to teach societal values in public school classrooms.

“Those of us in education have a major responsibility in communicating our nation’s shared values to our children, and elementary school is definitely where that dialogue should begin,” said Honig, who noted that the recent riots in Los Angeles provided a “solemn reminder of the fragility of our democracy.”

Among the other task force report recommendations are:

- Provide a “rich, meaning-centered, thinking curriculum” for all students in all subject areas.

- Have teachers learn one subject in depth, then share each other’s expertise.

- Use various student-grouping strategies.

- Avoid grade-level retention, focusing instead on giving struggling students extra help early in the school year.

- Aggressively recruit teachers from different ethnic backgrounds and make efforts to help all new teachers and to retain experienced ones.

- Continue efforts to develop a system of performance-based testing that emphasizes thinking skills and to test students in their native language if they are not proficient in English.

- Continue efforts to involve parents in their children’s education.

- Coordinate health and social services at the school to “ensure that the basic physical and emotional needs of children are being met.”

Honig acknowledged that at least some of the recommended strategies are being followed in most of the state’s 4,867 elementary schools, but said it is “very complicated to make it all happen at the same time, for all students.”

According to the state Department of Education, 29% of students entering kindergarten in California speak limited English, and the number of children living in poverty--nearly 1.8 million--doubled between 1969 and 1987.

Gov. Pete Wilson, acknowledging the growing numbers of children suffering from poverty and other problems, has proposed linking schools to community social services. Efforts to do so have been slowed by the state’s stubborn budget problems, which have led to deep cutbacks in spending on education and social programs.

Workshops on implementing the recommendations will be held this fall throughout California.

As is the case with reforms called for earlier in secondary schools, the state has no authority to require school districts to follow the task force recommendations for elementary grades. However, given the consensus reached by the cross-section of task force members, it is widely expected that most ideas will be implemented.

“There is a lot that a school district can do with this. . . . It’s a good guide, a chance to get the discussion going,” said Carol Katzman, a task force member and assistant superintendent of instruction for the Beverly Hills Unified School District.

“What I think is so good about it is that it gives lots of samples and examples of good things that are happening” and pulls together research and methods that cash-strapped districts cannot afford to do on their own, Katzman said.