Governor Offers Plan to Reduce Class Size

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today will announce a plan to reduce class size in the state’s lowest-ranked schools as he seeks to counter charges from education groups that his budget policies undermine California students.

The governor will include the $174-million proposal in his revised state spending plan, administration officials said. It is part of an effort by his administration to shift the education debate away from how much money the state is spending on schools. Officials want to focus it instead on ideas that could boost academic performance without increasing costs by billions of dollars.

Schwarzenegger this week unveiled a controversial proposal to turn around failing schools by handing them over to state-appointed trustees or management teams, or allowing them to reopen as charter schools with state permission.

The class-size reduction would provide 2,400 of the state’s worst-performing schools enough money, in theory, to reduce the number of students per classroom to 20 for a single grade, the officials said. But schools would be free to reduce class size in any way they chose in grades 4 through 12.

“We are saying the school will be eligible for a pot of money, and if they want to use it to shrink some classes in each grade, then they can do that,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. No officials would speak publicly about the proposal before the governor announced it.

The senior official said 632 public schools in Los Angeles County districts would qualify for the program; 308 would be in the L.A. Unified School District. In Orange County, 106 schools would qualify; in Riverside County, 131; in Ventura County, 45.

The governor has been taking fire from education groups and Democratic lawmakers for his intent to hold back more than $2 billion owed schools under voter-approved funding formulas. In a deal the governor struck with education groups last year, he vowed not to touch that money. But in the face of an $8.6-billion budget shortfall, he reneged.

The governor’s approval rating has dropped significantly in public opinion polls since school groups, including the politically powerful California Teachers Assn., launched a campaign against him that includes a blitz of television ads.

Education officials said the governor’s latest plan falls short of what schools need. “It’s a veritable drop in the bucket,” said Scott Plotkin, president of the California School Boards Assn. “Part of the agreement we made with the administration last year is that they wouldn’t cherry-pick these issues with a few million here or there.”

The “core problem” schools have, he said, is inadequate funding.

State Supt. of Schools Jack O’Connell agreed. He said the budget reductions the governor has proposed could force many school districts to abandon the state’s existing class-size reduction program for kindergarten through third grades. That popular program was put in place a decade ago, under former Gov. Pete Wilson. It gave schools incentives to limit class size to 20 students in those grades.

“I applaud any effort to lower the student-to-teacher ratio,” O’Connell said. “But, ironically, if the governor’s revised budget does not fulfill the promise he made to fully fund education, California schools will be faced with the terrible prospect of cutting programs like class-size reduction in grades K through 3.”

Administration officials, however, pitched the proposal to shrink class size in grades 4 through 12 as a bold new idea that would increase academic performance and attract more teachers to the state’s struggling school districts.

“The governor has been talking about trying to attract good teachers to these schools where it is harder to attract people,” said one official. “A lot of teachers say they would go to these districts if the classes were smaller.”

The official said the proposal would complement a plan the governor will release today to provide bonuses for teachers who work in low-performing districts.

To pay for the programs, Schwarzenegger will propose using unanticipated revenue the state has received because of an improving economy. Education groups had hoped most of that -- more than $2 billion -- would go to schools. But the administration said Wednesday that the governor wants to use $1.3 billion of the new money for transportation projects.

Some political analysts say that if the governor plans to keep his promise not to raise taxes, he won’t have enough money for schools to please the teachers union and other education groups. So he needs to shift the debate away from money.

“If he talks about education reform in terms of dollars and cents, he will not win,” said Bill Whalen, who was a speechwriter for Wilson. “We are under the national average for school spending, and we will be for the foreseeable future. The governor needs to talk about quality, not quantity.”

The Schwarzenegger administration is attempting to do that through a proposal to improve failing schools by turning them over to state-appointed trustees or management teams, or converting them into charter schools.

“This is an attempt to empower teachers, principals and parents to improve student achievement,” Margaret Fortune, director of the Governor’s Initiative to Turn Around Failing Schools, said as she presented a brief sketch of the plan to the state Board of Education on Thursday.

California has more than 500 charter schools -- publicly funded campuses free from many state regulations that offer innovative curricula but also face more stringent accountability. Schwarzenegger has said he believes such campuses offer viable alternatives to schools that repeatedly falter.

His proposal does not say how many failing schools would be turned into charters, or taken over by outside trustees or management teams. But at least 144 campuses could be candidates over the next three years.

Those are the schools that accepted extra state funds several years ago in exchange for agreeing to face state sanctions if they failed to raise test scores adequately. An initial batch of five campuses must show results under the agreement or face sanctions by next spring.

At Thursday’s hearing, many educators seemed frustrated and confused by the governor’s idea.

Los Angeles schools Supt. Roy Romer told the state board that Schwarzenegger’s proposal would create a “checkerboard of charters” in Los Angeles, undermining efforts to establish consistent programs across the district and raise test scores.

“I’m trying to get a solution that doesn’t destabilize our planning to build schools ... and plan curriculum,” Romer said.

San Jose Unified Supt. Don Iglesias was more blunt.

“This is not about a turnaround. This is about a takeover,” he said. “This proposal is a grave concern to the superintendents of California. We ask that you respect self-determination and local control.”

Officials at some of the schools affected said they were unaware of the governor’s initiative and were uncertain what it would mean for them.

Principal Paul van Loon of Eastin-Arcola Elementary School in Madera said his test scores have climbed nearly 15% since a team of outside consultants began assisting administrators as part of the state’s oversight program five years ago. But the school has been unable to string together two consecutive years of improvement.

Van Loon asked whether the governor’s proposal would impose generic sanctions rather than take into account the particular needs of struggling schools.

“I understand that the governor wants to see results and that’s the same thing we want to see. The question is how to go about implementing changes,” said Van Loon, who oversees a campus where about 70% of the students are still learning English and nearly all are poor. “I feel we’ve made changes and we’re on the right path.”