Eastin Vows Quick Action on School Reform : Education: State official says she will work to impose panel’s endorsement of basic skills in reading and math.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin pledged Wednesday to move quickly to implement the recommendations of task force reports that warned that California needs to return to teaching basic reading and math skills or risk failing its students.

The reading and math task forces--appointed by Eastin after California’s students performed dismally on state and national tests--”concluded that many language arts and math programs have shifted too far away from direct skills instruction,” Eastin said in a news conference at which she officially released the reports.

“Both send a clear message that students need basic skills as well as more complex analytical and problem-solving skills.”

The reading task force called for an overhaul of teacher training, classroom instruction and textbooks to emphasize word recognition and phonics skills, to balance the state’s current emphasis on literature and meaning in reading.

The math task force made less sweeping recommendations, urging educators to rethink whether the state’s approach to the teaching of mathematics is comprehensive enough.

The endorsement of basic skills was viewed by many parents--who had been complaining to schools for years that such skills were being neglected--as vindication. And it was endorsed by Maureen DiMarco, Gov. Pete Wilson’s top education adviser, who gave the reading report “four stars” and urged state officials to “move as quickly as possible” to bring the reforms to classrooms.

Both reports said the state should set standards and create a testing system to make sure students are measuring up. And both said that teacher candidates should be required to take more graduate courses to make sure they are familiar with effective techniques.

Many educators said Wednesday that teachers, especially those who have entered the classroom in the last eight years, since the state embarked on its progressive approaches to reading and math, will need training if the state is going to achieve the improvements envisioned by the task force.

To that end, Eastin said she will convene a group of parents organizations, university educator groups and the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to devise changes that will improve the preparation of teachers.

But educators and parents also said that many schools never stopped teaching basic skills, in spite of guidance from the state and local districts that seemed to urge them to abandon such basics as grammar, spelling and phonics.

And they worried that the task force reports may be misinterpreted as calling for a return to traditional methods that bored students by requiring endless drills on skills.

Fifth-grade teacher Pam Corey circulated among her students at Van Nuys Elementary School on Wednesday, helping one child read from Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” and another sound out the words in “Tikki Tikki Tembo.”

Corey said she does not want to go back to old-fashioned readers and primers the likes of “Dick and Jane.” But the veteran teacher said she never stopped teaching letter sounds or helping children figure out how to pronounce unfamiliar words.

“I think it’ll put us back,” if literature is eliminated by a wholesale shift to basic skills, she said.

In response to the task force reports, Eastin will ask each of the state’s school districts to revise its instructional programs. In addition, she will ask the State Board of Education to revamp the state’s language arts framework, which guides textbook purchases and instructional approaches.

When the state last adopted a language arts framework in 1987, the Los Angeles Unified School District responded by scrapping its instructional manual telling teachers exactly when and how they were to teach each reading skill, and substituted a new “course of study” guide that barely mentioned phonics or other skills.

Since 1990, when that course of study was adopted, the district’s reading scores for English-speaking first-graders on the California Test of Basic Skills have slid more than 13%.

Susan Backhus, a first-grade teacher at Arroyo Seco Alternative School in Highland Park, said hewing to either extreme is unfortunate and hurts children.

Like many teachers, she never stopped teaching phonics and other basic skills, and the task force approach validates her approach, she said. “I’m excited about having it published again that there are some basic skills that all children need.”

But Diana Garchow, a Bakersfield resource teacher who served on the task force, warned that many school districts will argue that they are already following the task force recommendations and will resist making any changes.

“I do believe the report is advocating major changes . . . and we have to shake up the state,” she said. “My fear is that too many people will say we are already doing this . . . and they’re not.”

Times staff writer Beth Shuster contributed to this story.