Davis Scales Back Plan to Lengthen School Year

The Davis administration has agreed to scale back its controversial plan to extend the middle school year from six weeks to four.

Money saved by reducing the number of additional school days to 20 will fund a new program designed to benefit students attending low-performing schools, said Ann Bancroft, a spokeswoman for Gov. Gray Davis’ education secretary, Kerry Mazzoni.

The changes will be made to legislation by Sen. Martha Escutia (D-Whittier) that is scheduled for a hearing today in the Senate Education Committee. Measure SB 1020 was expected to face an uphill battle as it moved through the Legislature, partly because of concerns by legislative leaders, including Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

Davis had proposed that the state’s more than 1 million middle school students spend an extra six weeks in class each year to bolster lackluster test scores.

But Vasconcellos had doubts about whether Davis’ plan, with its $1.45-billion price tag, represented the best way to spend precious education dollars. His Assembly counterpart, Virginia Strom-Martin (D-Duncans Mills), had made clear too that she would rather see the money spent on low-performing schools.

Bancroft said other changes include allowing schools during the first year of the program to use as many as five days to redesign their curriculum, with the remaining 15 days targeted for class time. Schools will also be allowed to extend the school year by 15 days and then add the remaining time, equal to five days, by extending the school day.

Money saved by scaling back the program would instead by spent on schools in the lowest two deciles, Bancroft added. The amount remained unclear Tuesday.

In response to Davis’ original proposal, the state’s independent legislative analyst, Elizabeth Hill, had called for funds to be redirected as a disadvantaged schools block grant. Another big critic of the governor’s proposal, the California Teachers Assn., had sought to have the money targeted at low-performing schools.