Bickering as Schools Fail

When Sacramento cannot even agree on what per pupil spending is in the state, it’s not surprising that Californians have little trust in government’s ability to fix public education. The nonpartisan state legislative analyst’s office recently reported that per pupil spending in California was now only $342 below the national annual average. Gov. Pete Wilson and other Republicans claimed credit for what they said was an improvement, while Democrats challenged that assertion and said per pupil spending was far less--$1,000 below the national average. What seems to be lost in this spat is that California is still well behind most states in per pupil spending and that the politicians are arguing instead of acting.

The dispute, typical of the politics of education, illustrates why parents and voters are looking beyond local and state governments to improve public education. They have tried the initiative route. Ironically, some of the successful ballot measures have set forth bad solutions that further exacerbate the problems.

Take Proposition 98, which voters passed in 1988 to take politics out of education funding and to guarantee that at least 40% of the state’s general fund each year would go to public education. Too often, Proposition 98 has been a ceiling for state allocation of funds rather than a floor. And this limited reservoir of education money has become a battleground for various groups--special ed, gifted and talented programs, various education unions.

The Proposition 98 straitjacket and the rest of public education’s woes have encouraged educational alternatives such as charter schools, but there aren’t enough such schools to satisfy demand and it’s far from clear that they’re a magic bullet. Now a number of wealthy businessmen, driven both by goodwill and alarm at the low level of employee skills, are funding programs aimed at improving achievement--or at least goading public schools to improve.

Last week, a group of businessmen pledged to raise $200 million for a national private voucher program that would help poor inner-city families in 50 cities, including Los Angeles, to pay the tuition to send their children to parochial or inexpensive private schools. Venture capitalist Theodore J. Forstmann and John T. Walton, son of Wal-Mart’s founder, each pledged $50 million to set up the Children’s Scholarship Fund.

The California Business Roundtable first proposed a statewide restructuring plan for public education in 1989. It called for a new framework and incentives--for example, merit pay in the form of salary increases to outstanding teachers. The Roundtable has also pushed for rigorous statewide educational standards, assessments and accountability.

A state board has already approved new reading and math standards. The Legislature, at the governor’s prodding, also approved statewide testing to measure academic progress across schools and districts. The first test, whose results are soon to be released, is not linked specifically to the new standards, but it will provide a measure of how each child, school and district is doing. Tests based on the new standards should be ready next year.

With standards and testing finally getting into place, California is still missing accountability--rewards and incentives for a job well done and consequences for failure. The Legislature and local school boards need to provide this critical element of school reform and make good on other promises or face the wrath of voters willing to govern by initiative and the deep pockets of businesses willing to go outside public education to guarantee that they get educated employees.

Sacramento has a lot of unfinished education business, beyond arguing how much is spent per pupil.