It Just Doesn’t Add Up

The new state budget adds just one day to California’s woefully short school year instead of the eight additional days needed to keep public school students in class for 180 days, the U.S. average.

Gov. Pete Wilson, who is about to sign the budget bill into law, could have freed up more funds to extend the school year if he had not chosen instead to pay off, all at once, $1.36 billion owed to the state workers pension fund. And a Democratic deal with the teachers union on how other earmarked funds would be spent cut off another source of funding for more school days.

The longer that students stay in class, the more they learn. In Japan, South Korea and many European countries, students go to school for 240 days a year, and it shows in generally superior test results. One reason California’s instructional time, 172 days, is below even the U.S. average is that teachers get up to eight so-called student-free days for training and staff development. School is technically in and teachers are on campus but students are out.

To Wilson’s credit, he pushed during budget negotiations for six more teaching days, but he proposed paying for the additional days from a $500-million windfall that--under an agreement worked out a year ago with the California Teachers Assn.--already was earmarked for other purposes. Couldn’t the Democrats have diverted some of those funds to lengthen the school year?

Sen. Steve Peace (D-El Cajon) proposed a bill that would have provided up to eight additional teaching days. He fought hard but won just one more day. State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, who backed Peace’s bill, hopes that the addition of even a single day will stimulate further progress as Sacramento begins to address the failures of the state’s public schools. Eastin would like to see the school calendar grow to at least 190 days of instruction, which would still allow teachers time for training to stay current and learn new skills.

But what we have is one day, not Eastin’s 18 more or even Peace’s eight. Will one more day in school make much of a difference for California students? Not likely. In these flush times Sacramento surely should have done better.