Teachers’ View of Davis Plans: Devil Is in Details

Education reform may sound bold and straightforward in inaugural speeches from Gov. Gray Davis. Out in the classroom, it seems a lot more complicated.

Take the idea that high school graduates should take a standardized exit exam.

“What’s going to happen to the X number of students who fail?” questioned a Mission Viejo high school advanced history teacher. “If 40% of kids fail, there’s going to be enormous pressure on the teachers and faculty. I suspect some people are going to respond to the pressure by teaching to the test.”

Or consider the plan to have teachers be evaluated by their peers.

“It could turn into a witch hunt,” said a senior Anaheim first-grade teacher, adding that there can be conflicts within a staff.

Take Davis’ idea for institutes to train teachers in reading instruction.

And what about the notion of publishing preschool reading guidelines?

“If we don’t have enough preschool programs, what’s the point of guidelines?” asks a second-grade teacher in Santa Ana.

Fixing schools defies simple answers. Meaningful change comes slowly--if at all--on campuses beset by an array of troubles, from paltry libraries to students who can’t speak English.

Now, as Davis pursues his agenda, instructors on the front lines share a nagging worry that the diverse needs of their campuses will be lost in the latest rush to reform.

“Nobody has a handle on the problems in California’s schools because nobody talks to the teachers,” said Diana Slavin, an English instructor at Marina del Rey Middle School.

A Davis spokesman said the governor has sought the advice of instructors in drafting his education agenda, which includes a major emphasis on teacher training.

A 13-member task force that helped shape Davis’ proposals included representatives of California’s two statewide teachers unions, a principal and a school district superintendent, the spokesman said.

“In traveling the state, Gov. Davis has met with numerous teachers to get their input on how to tackle education reform,” said the spokesman, Michael Bustamante. “You obviously need to hear from teachers and administrators to have the most effective programs possible.”

On at least one point, there is ample agreement: California consistently produces underachievers.

About three out of five third-graders in the state scored below the national average on the Stanford 9 test last year in reading, language mechanics and spelling.

Davis insists that the solution lies in accountability. He has called a special session of the Legislature to enact emergency laws that would create reading academies for the youngest students, peer review for teachers, sanctions for schools that fail to improve, and a new high school graduation exam.

“The time has come to restore California’s public schools to greatness,” Davis said in his inaugural address last week. “The voters demand it. Our future depends on it. And I am determined to make it happen.”

Speaking the Same Language

Teachers are skeptical.

“We’ve got these politicians who want to look good and sound good, but I don’t see them walking through my hallways,” said Justin Kristan, who teaches fifth grade at Sierra Park Elementary in El Sereno. “Come talk to us, meet us in our own terra firma. Come see what works.”

If Davis were to adopt the agenda offered by instructors such as Kristan, he might be pressing these ideas: Mandatory kindergarten. Summer school for faltering students. Class-size reduction in fourth and fifth grades. And a plan that not only engages parents in their children’s schoolwork, but teaches the adults English.

Such programs could benefit schools like Francis Scott Key Elementary in Anaheim, where a majority of the students do not speak English fluently.

La Nelle Harvey, a fifth-grade teacher at 93rd Street Elementary in South Los Angeles, said the gulf between expectations and achievement must be addressed. She sees it firsthand every day.

“We have kids coming to kindergarten who literally don’t know their own names,” she said.

Her campus is among 10 elementary schools in that area targeted for intensive help over the last decade by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Each of the campuses in the so-called Ten Schools Program has received $1 million annually to fund additional teacher training, reduce class sizes and provide nurses and other resources.

The goal?

Raise average scores on an annual standardized reading, math and language test to the national median, the 50th percentile.

In 1997, the 10 schools together scored at the 34th percentile on the combined Stanford 9 and Spanish-language Aprenda, just above the district’s average of the 33rd percentile. Among the best schools was 93rd Street, reaching the 42nd percentile.

Taken together, the schools outperform neighboring campuses that do not benefit from the additional resources. But the lofty 50th percentile remains elusive.

“We need to celebrate ourselves and our small successes,” one 93rd Street teacher said.

Another added: “The politicians don’t know what it means to truly teach a child.”

Teachers and administrators in the Ten Schools Program say the experiment illustrates the complexities of trying to improve student performance in the face of poverty, transiency and other hurdles.

The program offers clues to the kinds of obstacles Davis’ reforms could face in a state fragmented by the competing interests of 8,000 schools, 264,000 teachers and 5.7 million students, a quarter of whom speak limited English.

Some teachers point to a crack in Davis’ plan for teacher training. The institutes he is pushing--for instructors in kindergarten through third grade--could be offered during the summer.

But the very teachers the training is meant to serve--many in crowded city schools--are required to work during the summer at campuses on year-round schedules.

“We crave the training, but it’s asking so much to leave our classrooms,” said Brian Coffey, a second-grade teacher at Kelso Elementary in Inglewood. “New teachers have so much on their plates. The governor’s ideas don’t take into consideration the nitty-gritty details.”

Even well-intended solutions can create problems.

Parents cheered when schools statewide began cutting the size of lower grades to 20 students per teacher. But that wildly popular reform produced an unintended side effect: Thousands of inexperienced instructors had to be hired for the newly created classes.

Those teachers are among the ones Davis now wants to train. While many of the newcomers are watching the new education agenda with fresh eyes, their veteran colleagues are wary of dictates handed down by a state known for its faddish swings.

Elementary schools in particular have veered from one extreme to another in recent years as the state wobbled from whole language to phonics, pursued competing visions of math instruction and ended most bilingual education.

“You need to get everyone going in the same direction, but it’s hard if the direction continually changes,” said Lynn Lindsey, a fifth-grade teacher at Del Obispo Elementary in San Juan Capistrano. “There’s a solution a minute. You wait to see how it filters down to the classroom.”

Experts raise their own questions over whether broad initiatives can effectively filter down to classrooms, given the size and diversity of California’s public school system.

“It’s hard to even have reform at a single school when a principal wants it to happen, and that’s on a much smaller scale,” said Laurie MacGillivray, an assistant professor at USC’s Rossier School of Education. “It’s easier to talk about change than to do it.”

Sorting Out the Details

The Davis administration acknowledges that point. But Davis’ aides believe their initiatives represent the best hope of improving California’s schools.

Gary K. Hart, Davis’ education secretary, said the suggestions from the various teachers were valuable but the state has limited resources. “This is a work in progress,” he said.

The Legislature still needs to hash out Davis’ proposals when it begins its special session Jan. 19.

At this point, Davis is earning high marks for making reading instruction, teacher training and accountability top priorities.

Teachers applaud several of his proposals, including plans to expand classroom libraries and reduce the size of high school classes.

Many also welcome Davis’ plan requiring high school students to pass graduation exams. If Davis gets his way, the state would adopt a test to blanket high schools statewide, beginning in 2003. This year’s ninth-graders would be the first class through the exam mill.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction,” said Larry Emrich, principal of Ventura High School.

Emrich is in a position to know. Students at his high school and others in the Ventura Unified School District already are required to pass high school proficiency exams in reading, writing and math. The tests, he said, have helped instill a serious academic tone on campus.

“It’s not just a matter of seat time anymore,” he said. “You will not graduate with your class if you don’t get on the stick.”

But some educators disagree, arguing that a high school exit exam does not stymie the practice of social promotion, or allowing low-achieving students to graduate.

“As long as elected school boards implement the rules, Johnny is going to graduate because it’s politically unwise to be in charge of a system in which lots of kids don’t pass,” said Capistrano Valley High School teacher Jim Corbett.

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Times staff writers Tina Nguyen and Nancy Trejos contributed to this story.