Change in direction of California Education

 State superintendent will no longer manage California schools under deal Newsom cuts with Legislature

 

Ed Source 

 

https://edsource.org/2026/california-education-governance-reform-3/761057

The Story on SCUSD Superintendent that the Bee will not tell you.

Thank you Cosmo Garvin for writing what the Bee will not report on.

Cosmo Garvin. Sacramento News and Review. 9/11/2014. Page 15.

The Bee is clearly still sore about the loss of the previous superintendent, Jonathan Raymond. Raymond seemed to enjoy sticking it to teachers (and the occasional principal) and generally followed the playbook for corporate-ed reform.

He left quite suddenly during the last school year. The public reason was that he wanted his kids to be closer to their grandparents back in Boston. Surely a tough decision, to leave what he described as his “dream job.” But family comes first.

This summer, Raymond took a job as president of an education nonprofit called the Stuart Foundation—in San Francisco.

The Stuart Foundation is a major funder of something called the California Office to Reform Education. You may recall that Raymond committed Sac City schools to participate in the CORE, to help fund it, and to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores as part of the deal.

This was intensely controversial—and done without public input or any vote of the Sac City school board. The board only reversed Raymond’s decision after he had bailed, and after protests from teachers, parents and community groups.

It’s not so surprising that a plum job for Raymond was waiting on the other side of the revolving door. But what about the family thing?

Carol Ting, the Stuart Foundation’s chief operating officer, told Bites, “That was his plan. But then the recruiter came along and offered him his dream job.”

Dream job, huh? Anyway, Raymond slipped out the back door in a hurry, to take a dreamier job, or to escape whatever nightmares had cropped up here in Sacramento. Either way, even in his absence he was an important presence at the school-board-candidates forum held in Oak Park last Sunday.

Welcome to Sacramento Superintendent José Banda

Welcome to Sacramento.  We hope that you can establish a positive working relationship with the Board, the community, and the teachers.  Developing a positive relationship and sustained, consistent leadership is required for school improvement.

We regret the prompt attacks on your character and your contract by the Sacramento Bee editorial board.  You see they were staunch advocates for the prior Superintendent Jonathan Raymond, a Broad Foundation assisted superintendent.  He left promptly without an explanation. It is unusual for the Bee to attack a new superintendent before he has an opportunity to make some decisions. 

Duane Campbell, Director.

Democracy and Education Institute

Local Control | Tom Torlakson

Important vote. June 3, 2014.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction candidates: Part Two

The economic crisis in the state

There are three candidates for Superintendent who have any reasonable chance to win; Gloria Romero,  Tom  Torlakson, and  Larry  Aceves.

Romero and Torlakson have similar advantages and disadvantages.  They are both termed out legislators seeking a new position, not leaders in education.  A prior post examined Romero’s role and position.

While the eduwonks and Romero  continue their efforts and California achievement scores remain stagnant, others look to the immediate economic crisis that California and 42 other states find themselves in.

The Governor and elected officials discuss the economic crisis as if  the crisis is a neutral act, or as if a natural act- like rain or snow.   But, the  California school budgets are  a disaster not because of   some natural phenomena.  The crisis was created by people and policies of the federal  government and of the financial system.

This  economic crisis was created by finance capital and banking, mostly on Wall Street particularly  Chase Banks, Bank of America, Citi Group, AIG, and others – not by teachers and not by students. Finance capital produced a $ 2 trillion bailout of the financial industry, the doubling of US  unemployment rate and the loss of 2 million manufacturing jobs in 2008.  Fifteen million people are out of work.

Dean Baker of the  Center for Economic and Policy Research says it this way,

"The reality is that we got into this mess because of an overwhelming excess of greed and stupidity on the part of the Wall Street bankers and the people deciding economic policy. We continue to face excessive rates of unemployment because of a continuing reluctance to pursue policies that can restore the economy to health.

Dean Baker

Rather than  slash school budgets and lay off  teachers,  an appropriate response would be to tax the banks  and the financial trades.  We pay a 8% sales tax in California.  There should be at least a 3% tax on sales of stocks and derivatives and financial instruments. Such a tax could fund the schools and slow down the excesses of  casino capitalism.  

 The US

The UThspends less per student than 16 other modern industrialized countries . Moreover, of these, we are the only country that does not actively promote equality of educational opportunity. In the Netherlands, for example, schools receive 25 percent more funding for each lower-income child and 90 percent more funding for each minority child than in the United States (Slavin, 1998). Clearly, schools serving working-class students and cultural minorities fail in large part because our nation refuses to invest in its children.

 Our economy needs well-educated workers. We cannot permit schools to continue to fail. When schools succeed for the middle class and fail for working-class students and students of color, schools contribute to a crippling division along economic and racial lines in our society. Schools, as public institutions, must find ways to offer all children equal educational opportunity.

Let us be clear about the reality of schools in our nation. Some middle-class schools could benefit from reform, but most middle-class schools work reasonbly well. . Many  schools in urban areas, however, are unable to provide the equal educational opportunity called for by our national ideals and by constitutional law. There will be no significant change in the quality of education without substantial new funds allocated to these schools.

            Neo liberal reformers, although they  claim to be influenced by business management theories, miss use recent developments in management theory.  They fail to recognize that  teacher working conditions are student learning conditions.  Most large city schools are highly bureaucratized and control oriented institutions-  based upon a high level of control and distrust – as is the federal legislation NCLB.   Modern management theory recognizes that in personnel-intensive workplace, control does not work well.

Having explored the conflict between the two legislators, now lets turn to the candidacy of Larry Aceves.  Aceves is a retired school superintendent with extensive experience in the classroom and in school management.  He is not campaigning for one of the eduwonk projects of instant school reform which we know do not work.  His primary supporters are school administrators up and down the state. He clearly has their respect.  On the other hand, these administrators are not teachers. Most are former teachers.  The teachers’ union endorsements of  Toralkson are more impressive. 

Aceves represents the argument that what we need currently is an education professional who can lead the state office.  He has the experience in educational administration and leadership to make this case.  And, as noted, the prior two  Superintendents were former elected officials.

The teachers and the children in 85% of the schools need a Superintendent who  is knowledgeable about public schools, can lead and provide support.  The teachers and the students in the other 15% of schools need a Superintendent  who can work with the Obama Administration to develop, fund, and guide a turn around strategy.  For most schools,  the primary issue at present is the budget and response to the economic crisis.  Nothing in Aceves’  interviews nor promotional literature responds to the urgent issue of making the public, the legislature, and the governor understand  how the financial crisis is hurting public education.

The  protracted economic decline of the Great Recession has had a devastating impact on the California budget and the budgets of our schools. Revenues have continued to plunge and legislatures have made a series of deep cuts.  The crisis of state and local budgets, and thus of school budgets, will be even more severe next year when the current economic stimulus runs out.

Both Torlackson and Romero were in the legislature this year and had the opportunity to lead in responding to the budget crisis.  They did not.  They, like other politicians looked the other way and treated the calamitous economic crisis as a natural event, one not caused by specific policies and one not requiring policy responses.

Given the above,  if you prefer someone who can deal with the legislature, you should vote for Torlackson.  However, do not expect him to be able to gain significant funds for the schools. – It has not happened.

If you prefer someone who knows k-12 education well and who could guide and lead the state school bureaucracy, then vote for Aceves. The choice is not clear to me.

Gloria Romero ? For Superintendent of Public Instruction

  California Superintendent  of Public Instruction

There are three candidates for Superintendent who have any reasonable chance to win; Gloria Romero,  Tom  Torlakson, and  Larry  Aceves.

Romero and Torlakson have similar advantages and disadvantages.  They are both termed out legislators seeking a new position, not leaders in education.

In the last two years California’s  k-12 schools have received over a  $16 Billion  cut back in funding.   California presently ranks  45th  of the states in per pupil spending and last among the states in class size.   Currently the Governor proposes to reduce  k-12 spending by another  $2.4 Billion.

Since funding is a legislative issue, at first consideration it might seem that the two retiring legislators would have the greatest possibility of convincing the legislature and the governor to adequately support public schools.  However, the prior to Superintendents Jack O’Connell and Delaine Easton came directly from the legislature and presided over the schools during times of massive funding cut backs.   We just do not have evidence that being a Senator – even the Chair of the Senate Education Committee – does much good once you leave that office and become the Superintendent.

To understand the issues in this race you need to understand key issues in k-12 education.  This will also prepare you to understand the emerging debate of the re-authorization of ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) currently known as No Child Left Behind.

The Obama administration has proposed a re-authorization with some positive changes and some troubling directions.

First, you need to understand that California’s k-12 schools are not all bad.  California students regularly score ( on average) at the 47^th. or 48^th. rank among the 50 states in reading and math.  Superintend Jack O’Connell notes that the scores are stagnant, or holding steady.  He does not note they are  stagnant at 47^th. out of 50 states plus the District of Columbia.

These scores are cause for alarm- and they have been rather constant for over 25 years.  That is, the several waves of school reform, such as writing new standards and increasing testing, have not improved the average scores in California.