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California Education 25 Years After “A Nation at Risk” Released

By Jack O’Connell
California Superintendent of Public Instruction

[Editor’s note: This is the speech Jack O’Connell delivered, with charts and graphs, on Friday--the 25th anniversary of “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform,” a report that found that the educational foundations of American society were being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity.]

25 years ago, the landmark report, “A Nation at Risk” warned of dire consequences if we failed to expect more from our students and schools.

We responded by implementing a system of accountability to measure and rank schools on annual student achievement gains.

We’ve focused attention on groups of students who face particular challenges…and we’ve seen steady achievement gains.

For example, here, at the synergy charter academy, named a ca distinguished school and the ca charter school of the year for 2008, we’re seeing significant progress in the test scores of a very diverse student population.

This progress is positive and consistent, but we’re still having trouble educating all children to the very highest level, so on the anniversary of a nation at risk, I’d like to take a look back, and talk about where we are today.

Student population has increased.

This increase put enormous pressure on our schools, in terms of facilities; the rising demand for new teachers; books and supplies; and more.

Back in 1984, our student population was majority white and English speaking:

Now, our latest numbers from 2007 paint a different picture:

The needs of these students have changed dramatically as well.

Let’s now look at our English language learner population.

Let’s also take a look at how California compares to other states when it comes to the percent of children whose parents are not fluent in speaking the English language.

Another measure to consider is family income. One way to account for the number of students living in poverty is to look at students eligible for free and reduced-priced meals.

Also consider that it costs more to provide the high quality instruction needed to prepare the students we have to meet the demands of a challenging global economy…and we’re not investing more in our schools, we’re investing less.

Now let’s take a look at how California compares to other states when it comes to investing in schools.

On top of this, our governor is going to cut our education budget by 10%, or 4.8 billion dollars.

The Governor says we have a spending problem – I say we have a priority problem. If we don’t refocus our priorities on educating the next generations, our state is indeed at risk.

Posted on April 27, 2008

Comments

As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Californians have reaped the harvest of their foolish accommodation of an influx of several million poor and uneducated. What did Californians expect?
Mr. O’Connell fails to include in his story an analysis of communities with respect to number of children per household and taxes paid by members of a community. If he were to do that, he would find that communities with fewer children per household were in better shape than communities with more children per household.
Mr. O'Connell plays the liberals' tune of "send us more poor for our patron-client state, and send us more money to pay for it."
The problem is, as Mr. O'Connell says, a priority problem. But not the priority he identifies (i.e., not enough money). The problem is the liberals' priority of attaining a patron-client state.

Posted by: Erik Kengaard at April 27, 2008 10:20 AM

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