A GOLDEN AGE OF EDUCATION

The idea of a “golden age” in California education is almost a “given” in discussions about school reform. Most of today’s leaders consider themselves products of such a time and would like every child to reap the benefits they enjoy. In last week’s debate among the four leading candidates for governor, one of them proudly mentioned that she was educated in California’s public schools.

But that was then. Today, the state’s public-education system, all candidates agreed, is anything but golden. There is widespread agreement that the system is not graduating students adequately prepared for the 21st-century workplace. Employers routinely complain they cannot find qualified entry-level workers. School performance confirms this: California students score in the bottom quartile on standardized tests of achievement.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a similar education crisis in California. Schools were turning out students ill-equipped to work in new, expanding, technology-based industries that were propelling Los Angeles, in particular, and the state, in general, to the status of world economic leader. The outcome of that challenge offers a valuable lesson in dealing with today’s challenges. But did it produce a golden age in education for California?

If the criteria for such an age is preparation for the workplace and an increasingly educated citizenry, the years from 1920 to 1978 were indeed golden in California, though it certainly helped if you were white and male. During this span of nearly 60 years, more children read proficiently, could write a quality report and advanced to college than ever before in any other place of any other time. The system not only produced the world’s best-educated work force, it also generated education programs that were national models. California schools were once on the cutting edge of innovation.

There is one caveat that makes comparisons between then and now difficult, maybe even unfair (the more statistics we have, the easier it is to criticize). Before 1980, precise achievement, enrollment and graduation statistics were not systemically compiled by any state agency. A lot of the available evidence is anecdotal. There is the corresponding risk that those fondly remembering their public-school education also tend to idealize it. Nonetheless, it is possible to assemble a history of the period.

In 1915, elected superintendents ran city schools. Schools were cogs in the political machine, providing patronage employment. Reformers sought changes in school governance, management and structure. They drew an analogy to “the principles of good management in the business world.”

The reforms produced major changes. Beginning in 1920, school boards composed of professional and business leaders replaced the politicians. The elementary (six years), junior high (three years) and senior high (three years) school systems were instituted. Principals were assigned exacting objectives to carry out. New teachers were tested, assigned responsibility for achieving goals and subjected to strict accountability. Fast, middling and slow classes, organized according to IQ-test scores, and a curriculum similar to today’s were put into place. The “factory school” was in operation.

It worked. From 1920 to 1978, the growing K-12 school system educated increasing numbers of children. Student performance improved and high school graduation rates rose from 10%, in 1915, to 75%, in 1978.

After World War II, returning veterans and the G.I. Bill of Rights produced an unprecedented number of young men wanting to enter college. Gov. Earl Warren was determined to assure that there was a place for every one of these aspiring students. He devised a master plan for higher education. When Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Sr. entered office in 1959, he built on Warren’s mission. He worked hard to bring into existence the higher-education Master Plan of 1960, which established a system of community colleges, state colleges and universities, and guaranteed every high school graduate an opportunity to attend college.

In honoring Brown’s vision 25 years latter, UC President Clark Kerr observed that, “The University of California, and higher education more generally, truly had a golden age during the period 1945 to 1965. This was historic, as it was the first time in history that a government entity in the United States or in the world made such a guarantee--a guarantee that became a model for other states [and nations].”

The advancements in higher education were unprecedented. The state of California created the largest, highest-quality, free system of postsecondary education in the world. Enrollment skyrocketed from a few percent to two-thirds of all high school graduates. By the 1970s, 1.8 million Californians were enrolled in the system, the highest level of its history. Californians attended college at higher rates than students in any other state or nation. At least twice as many California students went to college as students did in other states.

State-sponsored universities developed world-leading academic and research programs in science, engineering and an array of specialized high-technology fields. New California industries grew out of these programs, creating jobs and establishing the state as a world leader in high technology.

Yet, the benefits of this golden age of education were not equitably distributed. Before 1960, college students were disproportionately white males. Most students from lower-income families did not achieve at high levels. They needed, but did not get, focused, skill-developing instruction. In short, three factors affected student achievement: family income and parents’ education; student status as either an early, mid-range or late developer in key skills, and segregation, prejudice and discrimination.

Before 1950, the numbers of Latinos, African Americans and Asian students in the state’s school system were small. The year 1950 marked the beginning of the dramatic changes in racial and ethnic composition of inner-city neighborhoods and, thus, in California’s public schools.

What helped to make the period from golden was how school officials responded to these new challenges. Wilson C. Riles, state superintendent of public instruction in the early 1970s, recognized the consequences of the school system’s changing demographics. First, gross inequities in student performance divided along racial lines; second, large numbers of minorities were moving into neighborhoods with all-white schools, causing discomfort among middle-class parents; finally, advances in knowledge about how children learn held out the promise of achieving significantly higher levels of student performance overall.

Riles produced the pioneering Early Childhood Education Program (ECE), which called for reforms aimed at improving education through better instruction. These kinds of programs, it was hoped, would add quality to the schools, restore the confidence of parents concerned about the future of neighborhood schools and provide children from low-income families with a sound education. Gov. Ronald Reagan, who wanted to hold down state spending, nonetheless approved money for the early-childhood education reform.

Riles went on to create the Reform for Intermediate and Secondary Education (RISE) program for grades 7-12. His partner was newly elected Gov. Edmund “Jerry” Brown Jr., but the two couldn’t get the program through the Legislature.

Soon after, however, the impetus to reform public schools moved to the Legislature, which ultimately produced the California School Improvement Program (SIP), which focused on individual schools. It set up school-site councils composed of staff, faculty and parents who worked together to improve curriculum and instruction. The larger idea undergirding SIP was a commendable desire to stimulate the reform impulse at the local level. Unfortunately, the implementation program was flawed, resulting in schools spending hundreds of millions of dollars to increase the number of teacher aides and little on classroom-based curriculum and instructional improvements. SIP, however noble its intentions, failed.

The year 1978 marked the turning point. Although high-school graduation rates of Latinos, African Americans and Native Americans increased to 60% in the mid-’70s, they began to fall after 1978, dropping to a low of 54% in 1996. The graduation rates of white students also fell. Between 1978 and 1998, California’s overall graduation rate declined by 10%, to 65%.

What tarnished education’s golden age in California? Four factors can be cited:

* Compared with other states, California’s spending on public schools declined over the past 20 years. The passage of Proposition 13 eliminated the primary source of school funds, the property tax. In the 1970s, California ranked among the top-10 states in education spending. Today, it ranks in the bottom 10 in per-capita spending on students.

* The factory school, once the pride of the reformers, never provided equitable, quality education to students who are mid-range or late learners.

* A dramatic change in the composition of the students occurred over the last 50 years. Today, there are many more students from non-English-speaking, low-income immigrant families. These students, historically, have been the most conspicuous underachievers.

* Just when California’s education challenges peaked, the state lost its reform momentum. In part, politics was to blame.

In 1983, Bill Honig, the state superintendent of public instruction, embarked on an ambitious strategy to develop 21st-century curriculum and student-performance standards linked to statewide tests. The link between curriculum and testing was necessary in order to get school superintendents, principals and teachers to pay attention to the standards. In a dispute with Honig, Gov. George Deukmejian ended California Assessment Program (CAP) testing statewide, which had been established in the early 1970s.

When Pete Wilson became governor, Honig appealed to him and Wilson supported the creation of a new model test. The test was first administered in 1993. Statewide, students performed poorly, in large part because the test measured important skills not yet taught in classrooms. The low scores sparked a professional and public outcry.

Facing reelection, Wilson scuttled the testing system and, just as important, the curriculum changes wedded to it.

Can we return to the golden age? The legacy of 20 years of declining student performance and a grossly underfunded schools is not easily reversed. The main problem is that the factory school that created the golden age is not a suitable model for a postindustrial age. The next governor, along with the Legislature, educators, parents and students must rise to the task of creating a school more capable of achieving equity and excellence for all. Conceptually, we need a different kind of school. Short of that, we risk throwing away billions of dollars a schools conceived for another era.