The Long View of Education

California needs a master plan for public education similar to the blueprint that made the state’s public university and college system the nation’s finest. A long-range plan for kindergarten through 12th grade should grant local districts greater freedom, emphasize student outcomes, increase the consequences for failure and remove the many bureaucratic obstacles to reform.

It is an idea catching on in Sacramento. State Sen. Dede Alpert (D-Coronado) has proposed a joint legislative committee to develop a long-term strategy for kindergarten through university. The effort should be led by a strong, independent educator like the legendary Clark Kerr, the 12th president of the University of California, who spearheaded the creation in 1960 of the California Master Plan for Higher Education. He guaranteed a plan devoid of politics, emphasizing quality education.

A good place to start this debate is a report from Elizabeth Hill, the state’s legislative analyst, which documents the need for a K-12 master plan. It outlines the evolution of school governance, discusses the role of state and local control and reviews hurdles that discourage progress in the classroom, such as some state and local budget policies, ineffective school boards, inflexible regulations and collective bargaining.

The report also analyzes successful reforms by Texas and North Carolina that raised standards, required student assessment, implemented accountability systems with real consequences, set up comprehensive data systems to track students and encouraged local improvement. Political and business leaders made long-term commitments to better schools and test scores, but local school districts were allowed to figure out their own paths.

In California, public school governance largely is no longer a local concern. Court decisions, voter initiatives including Propositions 13 and 98 and legislative actions have shifted primacy to the state. Sacramento provides most of the K-12 funding, often with strings attached. The governor, Legislature, elected superintendent of public instruction and appointed state school board all set policies, often conflicting.

The results can be merely unpredictable--like yo-yo budgets or the rush to reduce class sizes in the primary grades that forced many principals to hire inexperienced emergency teachers. Or they can be harmful, like California’s overenthusiastic embracing of the whole-language method of reading instruction at the expense of phonics.

A master plan should delineate the roles and responsibilities of the governor, Legislature, local school boards and superintendents.

The strategic plan also needs to resolve the inherent conflict between the elected state superintendent of public instruction and the state school board, appointed by and answering to the governor. The state Constitution requires both. Does California need both? If so, should their power be apportioned differently?

All of this could add up to a long-term vision for public education that gives new thrust to the state’s efforts to regain excellence.