Learning a Simple Lesson on Schools

It was slow learning for many, but most politicians now seem to be educated. They’ve been taught by polls and focus groups and election results that education is a hot issue.

We shouldn’t scoff. That’s how the system is supposed to work. People elect representatives to deal with their concerns. If they do, the politicians get reelected. If they don’t, they’re canned. When it does work, who cares about motive!

Every pol has been going on about education, lamenting the California “embarrassment”--our being graded down there with Mississippi et al.

Only one state politician, however, has been given the specific license to climb onto a soapbox and talk nonstop about nothing except schools. She even has some power to act. She’s the superintendent of public instruction, Democrat Delaine Eastin, 49, a former assemblywoman from Fremont and onetime community college instructor.

Eastin is up for reelection to a second term next year. And she is thought to be so strong politically that her toughest potential opponent, Assemblyman Brooks Firestone (R-Los Olivos), has all but decided to run for lieutenant governor instead. “All talk, no ‘do,’ ” Firestone says of Eastin. “She says the right things, but the right things aren’t happening.”

Eastin’s answer is that she’s a Democrat bucking Republicans--a GOP governor, state education board and, until last November, an Assembly. Anyway, Eastin asserts, things are happening--like the popular class-size reduction in grades K-3, which has made many pols look good, including Gov. Pete Wilson.

Eastin also developed new guidelines for teaching math and reading and got them adopted by the board. She has proposed student performance standards and begun to rejuvenate the old, sick libraries. She’s pushing for a longer school year and six computers in every classroom.

She’s always dropping in on schools, 150 by now. “It’s the difference between someone telling you how beautiful a symphony sounds and actually listening to it,” the superintendent says.

And it’s good politics.

*

Eastin has visited classrooms from South L.A. to Santa Ana to Stockton, covering all the demographics. Last week, she came to Shingle Springs, east of Sacramento in the Sierra foothills.

The bucolic setting was light-years from the inner city: wildflowers, green hills, grazing sheep, oak and aspen, quail and wild turkey. The big birds often stroll across campus at the Buckeye Elementary School, where Eastin spent the morning.

Practically all the 700 students are white. So these teachers are not burdened by a challenge common in California: instructing children whose parents don’t speak English at home. This is not an affluent area, however; 20% of the Buckeye students are on welfare, which is about the state average.

Don’t be deceived by ethnicity and geography, Eastin says. What succeeds in Buckeye succeeds anywhere; education failures also know no demographic boundaries.

“Standards, assessments, accountability is my mantra,” she says. Buckeye is in what she calls a “challenge” district; there are 55 statewide. They have voluntarily adopted her proposed performance standards, encouraged parental involvement and worked at keeping the schools clean and safe. The grade schools spend a lot of time on reading.

But “the kids’ attitude is the key to learning,” she says. “The successful stories--whether they’re about minority or poor or disabled kids--are all similar: Hard work and perseverance. Parental encouragement.

“Unsuccessful kids also have similar characteristics: A belief by the child and parents that failure is innate, or that they’ve had bad teachers or bad luck. If you really apply yourself, you can still learn.”

Eastin likes to quote Penn State football coach Joe Paterno’s reply when asked why his teams have the will to win: “Everyone has the will to win. Winners have the will to prepare.”

*

Class-size reduction has given children more time to prepare. And teachers everywhere are ecstatic. Buckeye class sizes have been cut from 32 to 20 in grades 1-3.

“It’s the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened,” says first-grade teacher Cathy McCahon. “I’ve got kids reading nonfiction and doing research who have reached the mid-second-grade level.”

Second-grade teacher Sharon Hanson: “The students are fully engaged in learning, rather than kicking each other under the table.”

I asked several teachers whom they credited for the smaller class sizes. They had it figured out: Eastin and Democrats prodded, Wilson astutely saw the political benefit, and everyone deserves kudos.

A simple game, really: Listen to the voters, act for the voters, score points. Everybody wins.