Assembly OKs 2 of Davis’ Education Reform Bills

Gov. Gray Davis’ $444-million plan for reforming California’s public education received its strongest boost so far when the Assembly approved bills Thursday bolstering reading instruction and offering help to weak teachers.

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) said the passage means that the Legislature is on track to approve all four of Davis’ bills by March 30, matching the governor’s goal.

“Obviously, it’s been a good day,” Villaraigosa said, grinning, minutes after the vote.

Davis praised the leadership of Villaraigosa, who is shepherding the bill calling for peer review of teachers, and Assemblywoman Kerry Mazzoni (D-San Rafael), author of the reading bill.

“It’s a clear sign that the Assembly wants to turn our schools around,” Davis said in a prepared statement.

Republicans, who hold only 32 of the Assembly’s 80 seats, were less ebullient, saying that the reforms go too far in some respects and not far enough in others.

Even though Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) voted for both bills, he described them as “drops of reform [that] dribble out of the pipeline and soak into the sand.”

“Is it much better than nothing?” McClintock asked. “No!”

The reading bill--which would increase literacy classes for young students and expand training opportunities for their teachers--passed on a 75-0 vote. The sole criticism concerned a $4-million literacy publicity campaign that one Republican called “a deplorable waste of public funds.”

The peer assistance and review bill, under which veteran teachers would evaluate foundering colleagues, was a harder sell. After more than an hour of debate, it passed 47-24, with only McClintock and two other Republicans joining the Democratic majority.

“Why is Sacramento once again experimenting with our children?” asked Assemblyman George Runner Jr. (R-Lancaster), summing up the central GOP complaint that peer review is unproved.

Republican efforts to dramatically alter the peer review bill with a dozen amendments fell flat for lack of votes. The GOP wanted to reward or punish teachers based on student test scores and allow districts to ignore the peer review program if they choose.

The two Davis bills approved Thursday move to the Senate. Two companion bills in the Senate, proposing a high school graduation exam and a school-by-school ranking system, are expected to be voted on Monday in the upper house before shifting to the Assembly.

A bill to review the appropriateness of the test given to all entry-level teachers in California--the California Basic Education Skills Test--also passed the Assembly on Thursday. It was introduced by Assemblywoman Lynne Leach (R-Walnut Creek) and is the first of more than two dozen Republican special session bills.

Peer review has been widely discussed in California in recent years, but fully implemented only in the San Diego County community of Poway. Davis’ $100-million program creates a system whereby teachers who get poor evaluations from their principals would automatically receive assistance from a team of mentor teachers.

Districts would have to negotiate an agreement with teachers unions to receive their share of teacher improvement money.

In other locales where peer review exists, it bubbled up during local negotiations with teachers unions. In an unusual liaison, Republicans have joined teachers unions in protesting the mandatory nature of Davis’ top-down statewide proposal.

Assemblyman Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) called it a “heavy-handed, one size fits all, government mandate.”

Villaraigosa maintains that the statewide proposal is voluntary because districts can opt out--albeit with a loss of funds.

The reading bill grew out of Davis’ concern over news that fewer than half of California’s third graders read at third grade level, and more than a third lack the most basic reading skills.

It would provide $75 million for summer reading academies through fourth grade, $4 million for a campaign to promote family reading and $2 million for awards of up to $5,000 to schools where students read lots of books.

The bill also establishes three higher education programs: a full scholarship master’s degree program to attract top University of California students to the teaching profession; an annual reading training program for 6,000 beginning teachers, and a principal training institute at UC Berkeley and UCLA.

All three must also be approved by UC regents.