The report of the Governor’s Advisory Committee on Education Excellence, “Students First, Renewing Hope for California’s Future,” is our site of the day

Last Friday, the committee commissioned by Governor Schwarzenegger in April of 2005 to “analyze current impediments to excellence, explore ideas and best practices relevant to California, and recommend changes and reforms,” on the state’s K-12 educational system, issued its report: “Students First, Renewing Hope for California’s Future.”

This is a 44 page summary report and there are other reports, research, and recommendations on the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence site as well.

The committee is a non-partisan, privately-funded group. Its specific charge was to “focus on four inter-related topics: governance, finance, teacher recruitment and retention, and administrator preparation and retention.” They describe their process as follows:

“For over two years, the Committee has held meetings across the state and spoken with numerous stakeholders, policymakers, and researchers from California and throughout the nation to learn from their ideas and experience. The Committee also has benefited from an extensive array of research on education, prior studies of the California education system, and reports from other states and cities seeking to dramatically reform their school systems. The breadth of these inputs demonstrated the magnitude of the challenges facing our education system and extended the scope of our inquiry.

“Despite the remarkable diversity among our members, our Committee has achieved this report by consensus; remarkably, there has been little philosophical difference among members regarding our purpose, our principles, or the bases of our recommendations. We believe that this report sets the foundation for a system of schools that will meet the needs of Californians today and into the future, with the expectation that the system will continue to improve to meet the needs of future generations.”

While Governor Schwarzenegger has declined to support changes recommended by his own commission that would involve increasing educational funding, the report nevertheless should be read, and not gather dust on a shelf as it has many recommended action steps and researched ideas as to where it concludes we should be going as a state if we truly care about education.

Reading the report, you will see a quote from Governor Schwarzenegger in his 2005 State of the State Speech clearly indicating he understands we have a problem here that needs fixing: “California will spend $50 billion on K–14 education this year. ... What do we get for that money? We get many wonderful and dedicated teachers. We get many children who are doing terrific. But $50 billion and we still have 30 percent of high school students not graduating. That is a human disaster. Fifty-billion dollars and we still have hundreds of schools that are failing. That is an institutional disaster. Fifty-billion dollars and the majority of our students cannot even perform at their grade level. That is an educational disaster.”

The failings of the California K-12 educational system is encapsulated in the following findings of the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP) found in this report. NAEP results show that California’s overall results rank amongst the states is:
• 48th 4th grade reading
• 47rd 4th grade math
• 43rd 4th grade science (of 44 states)
• 48th 8th grade reading
• 45th 8th grade math
• 42nd 8th grade science (of 44 states)

And that all student groups lag behind similar students in other states.
4th grade reading:
• 29th Whites
• 29th Blacks
• 43rd Latinos
8th grade math:
• 35th Whites
• 33rd Blacks (of 40 states)
• 38th Latinos (of 42 states)
• 37th Children of college graduates (of 49 states)

You will see that the California public supports changes. Drawing upon the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) statewide surveys from 2005 and 2007, this report distills that:

• 84% Believe that better use of existing funds would lead to higher quality.

• 71% Believe that school districts in lower-income areas should receive more resources.

• 65% Believe that additional state funding would lead to higher quality.

• 64% Believe that increases in teacher pay should be based on merit, including student performance, rather than seniority.

• 53% Believe that California ranks below average (39 percent) or near the bottom (14 percent) compared to other states on test scores.

• 52% Believe that the quality of California K–12 education is a big problem. Teacher quality is at the top of the list that needs improvement.

The committee agreed on approaches to 4 interrelated priorities:

1. Strengthen teaching and leadership.

Make teaching and education leadership true professions:

● Give teachers advanced career opportunities without leaving the classroom, including mentoring and site leadership roles.
● Have peers and leaders use professional standards and performance outcomes to evaluate teachers and principals. Let good teaching and leadership drive out bad.
● Target professional development to school priorities and student needs.
● Grant professional compensation based inpart on student-performance gains, skills, and
responsibilities.

Deregulate professional preparation.
Close the gap in teacher and principal effectiveness among schools.

2. Ensure fair funding that rewards results.

Invest more resources in students, particularly in those at the lowest end of the achievement gap who have been least well-served by the system in the past.
Deregulate finance, and link local control to outcome based accountability:
● Use student-centered budgeting to get additional funds to students with the greatest needs:
– Drive fiscal accounting to school level to ensure equity.
– Correct incentives to ensure students’progress is not held back.
● Eliminate almost all categorical program mandates; allow local choice to drive program selection.
Create local incentives to reward teaching and leadership excellence.

3. Streamline governance and strengthen accountability.

Refocus accountability on improving outcomes and meeting proficiency targets for all students and subgroups.
Enhance assessments to measure growth of student achievement.
Expand local control to increase efficiency: Combine resource flexibility with greater accountability, and encourage greater school autonomy.

Have county offices provide support to address district needs and state-delegated roles.
Create a school inspection system to identify problems and support improvement.
Empower county superintendents through their established service regions to enforce district accountability and intervention.
Enhance sanctions for school failures, with zero tolerance intervention.
Designate the Superintendent of Public Instruction as the independent guarantor of success, overseeing accountability (post-2010):
● Expand and manage data/evaluation systems.
Create an independent data commission until the Superintendent role changes.
Have the Secretary of Education manage policy, program, and funding (post-2010):
● Have the California Department of Education support instructional delivery and stop monitoring process compliance.
Have the State Board of Education become advisory to the Governor and Secretary.
Empower parents to help improve learning quality, and give them real choices.

4. Use data wisely.

Make performance, program, and financial information transparent, and provide it to parents, educators, communities, and the state.
Create comprehensive data systems that link student, teacher, school, district, and state data, with capacity to link to college, work, and social services data.
Create capacity to analyze data and programs and to support districts’ needs:
● Evaluate programs to ensure effectiveness before continuing them.
Plus, create a foundation for continuous improvement.
Prepare our children for success from the earliest age:
● Implement mixed-delivery, statewide preschool for all 3- to 4-year-olds in poverty.
● Make kindergarten full-day and change entry date.

Posted on March 17, 2008

Comments

Posted by: lynn nelson at March 18, 2008 08:13 AM

Posted by: ernest avellar at March 18, 2008 02:37 PM

Posted by: ernest avellar at March 18, 2008 02:37 PM

Posted by: ernest avellar at March 18, 2008 02:38 PM

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