Prop. 8 Will Hold Schools Accountable

There are many ways to know that school is starting. There’s a hint of fall in the air. Kids have their new clothes. Ads for school supplies clutter commercial messages. Yellow buses are back on the road. And the clincher: Educrats are back vocally opposing school reform.

In California, the reform killers are revved up in two directions, the past and the future. With regard to the past, they are hellbent to prevent implementation of the ballot initiative passed overwhelmingly last June to repair failed bilingual policies. As for the future, their sights are set on blowing up a fall initiative which would introduce important new reforms to rescue California’s schools.

This unyielding obstinacy should come as no surprise. Despite the 61% support last June for Proposition 227 to replace native-language instruction with structured English immersion, its petulant opponents promised obstruction. The day after its passage, they filed suit to thwart the electoral results. One recalcitrant teacher, oblivious to the law-snubbing message to his students, warned that the voters’ decision “forces us to be saboteurs.”

No wonder those who seek to bring change to calcified school structures are frustrated. One is the Rev. Alice Callaghan, a dedicated Episcopal priest who directs Las Familias del Pueblo, a nonprofit community center in Los Angeles’ garment district. She has fought for education language reforms but now laments in a recent Los Angeles Times column that California school boards have invoked against 227 a “tacit veto by simply refusing to implement the measure.”

As for this November’s elections, California voters are well-advised to lay in a two-month supply of antacids to deal with the swill soon to be served up by the teachers unions and school bureaucracy in attacks on Proposition 8. Proposition 8 is The Permanent Class Size Reduction and Educational Accountability Act of 1998 and promises caring teachers, parents, school boards and administrators real tools to make a difference for kids.

With support of Proposition 8, voters can bring about:

* Permanent funding for class-size reduction--ensuring that money will always be guaranteed in the state budget so classrooms in the formative kindergarten through third grade years contain no more than 20 students.

* Zero tolerance for drug possession in schools--meaning immediate suspension and recommended expulsion for students caught in possession of controlled substances on campus.

* Requiring teacher-competency exams to close the loopholes in the credentialing process--so if teachers cannot prove knowledge in subject areas they teach, or demonstrate effective instructional skills, they can be removed for poor performance.

* Parental involvement through local school site governing councils--which, composed of two-thirds membership by parents, will work cooperatively with teachers and principals to make curriculum and spending decisions locally.

* Public accountability for school performance--putting into place a chief inspector of schools to evaluate public schools, rank them and publish the results so parents can fairly judge the quality of their children’s education.

Teacher-competency tests, public accountability and local parental control will represent massive change and reform. And they will be as welcome to unions and autocratic administrators as Ken Starr would be at Martha’s Vineyard.

But if you think nothing should be done, consider the sobering results of a national poll recently commissioned by the mayor of Philadelphia to measure teenagers’ grasp of pop culture compared to their knowledge of the U.S. Constitution.

While only 25% know our founding fathers gathered in Philadelphia, three out of four know that 90210 is the ZIP Code of Beverly Hills.

The survey found that two out of 100 teens know William Rehnquist is chief justice of the United States, but 95 out of 100 are aware that Will Smith played the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air on TV.

As for California: 1998 test scores--the first to compare our schools with the national norm in three decades--laid out discouraging student results below the national average in 28 of 43 categories.

Alice Callaghan concluded that following passage of the bilingual-reform initiative, “we have learned that nothing the education bureaucracy opposes will be done.”

There is hope. This fall Californians will have a chance to take back the educational fate of their children, strike a blow for accountability and implement the kind of liberty envisioned by those who gathered in the city of which too many teens are ignorant.