Schools Shadowed, Not Forgotten

Although the electricity crisis dominated his State of the State address Monday evening, Gov. Gray Davis did not neglect school reform. He proposed more training for teachers and principals and targeted two of California’s weakest educational links, middle school and mastery of algebra.

It’s a costly package, on top of energy reforms that Davis has pegged at $1 billion. But if the governor and Legislature continue demanding more of teachers and students, they should continue providing better tools.

Davis is asking school districts to extend the school year for the middle grades, generally sixth through eighth, by 30 instructional days. His proposed budget provides an incentive, an extra $770 per student, for districts that volunteer to add the six weeks. The governor’s request for $1.45 billion over three years would cover about half the state’s middle-school students.

Overcrowded districts that operate campuses year-round would be allowed instead to extend the school day. That may not prove popular in districts like Los Angeles that already use a longer day at year-round multitrack schools to compensate for a shorter school year. But it would allow all districts to participate. After all, Los Angeles administrators once thought it impossible to reduce primary classes to 20 students but got the job done.

Academic failure often takes root in middle school when students, crammed as many as 45 to a class, are asked to do more complicated school work. Students who fail math in the middle grades are unlikely to pass algebra, which is now required for high school graduation in California. The governor is proposing a $30-million incentive program to increase the pay of qualified math teachers, provide additional training, reduce class size and help failing students master pre-algebra skills. Finding and keeping good math teachers, who could make much more money in the private sector, will require these incentives and more.

Davis also proposed intensive training for every reading and math teacher at a cost of $830 million and training for every principal and vice principal in leadership, management and diagnostic skills at a cost of $15 million. All these well-targeted proposals deserve serious legislative consideration.