Legislative Analyst Calls for State Master Plan for Public Schools

The state’s legislative analyst, following through on a suggestion she made as part of the debate on education reform, issued a report Tuesday calling for a state master plan for public schools.

Such a plan would outline the roles and responsibilities of state government, the nearly 1,000 locally elected school boards and the 8,000 public schools in the education of California’s 5.7 million children.

It would be similar to one that has guided state colleges since 1960.

Various school groups, such as the California School Boards Assn. and the Assn. of California School Administrators, have asked the Legislature to write a long-range plan for kindergarten through grade 12 education.

They say dozens of changes in the past few years--such as class-size reduction, statewide academic standards and Gov. Gray Davis’ recent school-improvement bills--have been made piecemeal.

The state Senate last month voted unanimously to create a committee to develop a K-12 master plan by November 2000. It would include a new plan for public schools and a revision of the state’s college plan. The Assembly has not yet voted on it.

Davis has taken no position on that proposal, spokeswoman Hilary McLean said. He had not seen the analyst’s report Tuesday and had no comment on it, she said.

The report suggests reversing the trend of the last three decades, when a series of court decisions, laws and voter-approved initiatives shifted power from school districts to the state.

The current state-centered system was not developed from a long-term strategy, the report states.

“Instead, the state presence in K-12 education results from the accumulation of large and small policy decisions that generally increase the state’s role at the expense of school districts,” the report says.