Standing to Deliver

Education in Ventura County has never been more available--or more important.

At the soon-to-be Cal State Channel Islands campus in Camarillo, the first college students and teachers arrive Monday. For now, it will simply be the new home of the well-established satellite campus of Cal State Northridge. But in two years, it will metamorphose into something county residents have dreamed of for three decades: Ventura County’s first full-fledged four-year public university.

In Thousand Oaks, Cal Lutheran University has been awarded a million-dollar grant to help teachers learn to more effectively use technology in the classroom. The money from the U.S. Department of Education will give Cal Lutheran’s teachers-in-training access to three county magnet schools already using technology in their instruction.

Moorpark College is exploring the feasibility of opening a satellite campus in the Conejo Valley, perhaps as soon as fall 2000. The plan would bring the affordable two-year programs of the Ventura County Community College District to a new corner of the county while it eased crowding at the Moorpark campus. Oxnard College already has a storefront satellite center in Camarillo.

And all over the county, schools are beginning a new year with renewed energy and aggressive programs to help lagging students catch up. The emphasis on boosting achievement is inspired by a statewide push toward more rigorous requirements for students--and by some mediocre results on standardized tests.

The legislated end of “social promotion” means that students who do not master math, reading and writing will be held back until they do. And next year, beginning with ninth-graders, schools will phase in Gov. Gray Davis’ exit exam. By 2004, all students will be required to prove their proficiency in several subjects before they can graduate.

To improve their students’ chances, area school districts have adopted a variety of strategies.

The Oxnard Union High School District last year started a mandatory summer school program for ninth-graders who were reading two or more years below grade level. This year it started a community day school for students who are on probation, are habitually truant or have been expelled from a traditional high school.

Fillmore has reduced its 10th-grade English classes from 30 to 20 students and added after-school tutoring programs for low-performing students.

Tutoring or catch-up classes are now required for low-achieving students in Moorpark, Simi Valley and the Conejo Valley.

There’s a special emphasis on reading skills, and rightly so. Reading is the key to every other subject, and to success in the outside world.

The Ventura Unified School District has hired additional reading specialists to teach expanded literacy classes. And about 100 teachers from eight districts attended a five-day institute at Cal Lutheran recently, part of a statewide effort to improve reading instruction in classrooms.

All of these efforts reflect Ventura County’s belief in one shared truth: Education is the best route to a full life and a bright future. Legislators, the governor, taxpayers and school districts have taken these steps to help guarantee that classroom time will be productive and rewarding. Now it’s time for student, parents and teachers to do their part.