This new-year, 2011, will be the year for a new federal program for the reform movement in public education. Or will it? Will we punt once more since the problem appears to be intractable and no clear consensus has emerged on where we need to go from here? The history is instructive.
In 1965 Pres. Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which was to be a major effort at eradicating poverty. Child poverty was viewed as threatening the future of America. Through ESEA there would be increased federal education funding for low-income children. Pres. Johnson and most of Congress understood the importance of education especially with increased achievement in reading and math in building a brighter future for children and society.
ESEA had mixed results. I blame the permission that districts and schools had to do whatever they thought would work. We knew little about the “best practices” that have the most efficacious results. I felt we left too much to local control. Accountability for the funds being used was at low levels and not easily reported to the public.
For the next 37 years, achievement for low-income children continued to flounder and the achievement gap continued to grow with only glimpses of hope for its elimination. In 2002, amidst much fanfare Pres. George W. Bush, with bi-partisan support from Sen. Ted Kennedy, signed into law the next iteration of ESEA, called No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This 2002 federal plan to reform public education by increasing the use of data, accountability, testing and high-stakes decisions (e.g. closure of schools) was a five-year effort to be reviewed and reauthorized in 2007. Due to political gridlock and the pending 2008 campaign during this period the law was never reauthorized.
Pres. Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan in 2009-2010 authored the new program, “Race to the Top” (RttT), allocating over $4 billion to school districts for market-based reform efforts including merit pay, charter schools, tenure/senority reform and value-added estimates for decisions. Here is the problem as I see it going forward.
According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 42 percent of American children live in low-income homes and about 20 percent live in poverty. The number of children living in poverty has risen by nearly 35 percent over the last decade. Since educational success in schools is correlated with income levels, we have a problem begging for a more systemic solution. States and municipalities must fight poverty with all their creative might, yet as Gov. Jerry Brown has stated, the safety net programs for fragile families and children must be cut due to the deficit.
However, Brown proposes to keep K-12 education funding at the level it is this year. This appears to be taking a small step forward and a few steps back for children and the creation of the Great Society Pres. Johnson envisioned. Will we learn that we pay for the society we get? Is there hope?
Yes, there are schools both traditional public and charter in Santa Clara County that are making tremendous strides with the achievement of low-income children on the same budget as schools not so successful. Rocketship Charter Schools in San Jose and Leroy Anderson Village School in Moreland are two examples of how achievement for low-income children can be done at the highest of levels with little or no extra money. It is the role of the Santa Clara County Office of Education, of which I am now board president, to find ways to share and implement these best practices.
It is high time for all of us to roll up our sleeves and work to build a great community for every child. We have the creativity, the innovation, the technology, the people, if not all the money we need. I agree with many who blog that it is not always about the money, but the will.
> “Getting on Top of the Education Issue Requires More Than Money”
Now, we’re getting somewhere.
> “Since educational success in schools is correlated with income levels, we have a problem begging for a more systemic solution.”
Correlated? Which is cause and which is effect?
> “We knew little about the “best practices” that have the most efficacious results. I felt we left too much to local control.”
Uh,oh!
Does “best practices” mean best practices, or does it mean “best practices so long as the central bureaucracy is in control, and the teachers union writes the rules and gets its skim off the top of the budget”?
Joseph,
Given the Tuscon shootings, and the history of this mentally ill shooter, what are your thoughts on tracking troubled students? What are schools doing to get help for troubled students?
An interesting issue that has been raised in the Tucson shooting is that the shooter attended a school that was reportedly using a curriculum designed by President Obama’s political comrade-in-arms, William Ayres.
Ayres was a “former” member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and was charged with bombing the Pentagon, but never brought to trial on a legal technicality.
Ayres and Obama collaborated in an education project focused on “Small Schools” and reportedly developed curricula for use in such schools.
The world wants to know: what was the nature of the curriculum used by the school that the shooter attended, and what influence did it have on the shooter’s beliefs, values, and judgement.
The suppostion is, of course, that with the involvement of the heavy hand of radical nihilist and terrorist bomber William Ayers, the shooter may have learned things that were influential in making him the violent, sociopathic person that he demonstrated he is.
Disclaimer: I am not yet claiming that the shooter was the product of any sort of leftwing conspiracy. My presumption at the moment is that he was simply mentally ill.
Kathleen,
Very good question, thank you for asking. I know that most school shootings involve a student who has been bullied and who had previously reached out for help. We can do more to support and help the families and children that exhibit psychotic behavior. We need more wrap around services and more cooperation between schools/districts/community colleges and universities. I plan on launching an advisory commission to inform the Board of Education on how the County Office of Education’s array of services to teacher, administrators, schools and districts can assist in all the aforementioned areas.
Are you interested in serving? Is anyone else who reads this blog interested in serving and coming back with some recommendations to the Board?
I’d love to serve on your Advisory Committee as long as it isn’t on a Monday or Saturday morning, and the recommendations we give you are actually put into action. (I have commitments on those two days that I can’t break.) I have served on too many “Advisory” Boards and committees that are simply ignored when they present well thought out recommendations to make tough changes happen.
Can you post an e-mail address where I can contact you?
On a side note: My observation is that teachers see troubled youth long before the kids OD, rob, assault someone, or shoot someone. There needs to be a way of catching and helping these youth long before they do something as horrific as this guy did.
I have watched several interviews now of young folks who knew this guy. They all said he was mentally ill. There just has to be a serious intervention done to stop this before it happens, and I think the schools are the first place to start.
We also need to start funding mental health programs and getting resources out to the community so they can get the help they need, when dealing with mentally ill friends or family members.
The stigma and the cost of mental health assistance is part of why so many needing treatment don’t get help. Given the sad state of our economy, many people are in despair and are doing things they would have never done before. We need to wake up and address this now before any one else looses their lives to a senseless act like this again.
Joseph, I’d love to see you write a column on this topic. I think a lot of folks out there would benefit from your thoughts and ideas.
Kathleen,
My email is
Jo************@sc***.org
. Thank you for your interest.
It’s not only educational success that is correlated with income level. A whole host of social ills are caused by the increasing gap between the rich and the poor in this country. Violence, bullying and deteriorating mental health are just some of the costs of our very unequal society. It takes a huge amount of surveillance to track the kid that is going to bring a gun to school and fire it. It is far more cost effective on many levels to first address the inequalities in our society. For more on this visit the No Bully blog at http://nobully.wordpress.com/
Joe,
I agree with what you say here. I’d love to see the SCCOE benchmark “best practices” so all kids could have access to the kind of educational methods that Bracher Elementary, a Title 1 SCUSD school, has used to attain 100% proficiency for its 4th graders in BOTH English Language Arts and Math. That’s 100%—meaning ALL socioeconomically disadvantaged kids are proficient, ALL Latino kids are proficient—EVERY child is proficient!
These practices include:
– Regular [at Bracher, it’s 3 times yearly] multiple-choice testing [yeah, “bubble tests”] in both ELA and Math at all grade levels;
-Dumping “heterogeneous classrooms with differentiation” and instead placing each child in an ELA class with similarly-ready kids, and in a Math class with similarly-ready kids;
– More “direct instruction” [old-school style approach] teaching with less “student centered learning” [new-style fuzzy approach];
– Keeping calculators out of the classroom at the Elementary level (except to the extent that kids learn how to use them), and holding kids accountable for learning basic math facts;
– I.e., doing the opposite of most of the “new age” cost-inefficient pedagogical methods that have become the norm in CA and America, and that are taught to newly trained teachers as the “modern” way to do things.
My sense is that Rocketship, Kipp-Heartwood and other successful Charter programs do similarly. There’s no reason why even the most challenged Title 1 District public schools can’t achieve the same results if they employ the same techniques and methods—Bracher has proven this!
Dr. Ina K. Bendis, Esq.
Member, Santa Clara Unified School District Board
Member, California Dept of Education’s Committee of Title I Practitioners
I’ve served on two school boards in this county for a total of nearly 13 years; East Side school board from 1998-2006 and the Santa Clara County Board of Education since first being elected in 2006 (reelected in 2010).
I agree that it is going to take more than just money. However, I can tell you that our challenges are a reflection of how we invest in our public priorities. IF, IF, education was THE top priority the outcomes would be significantly different. However, our investments and accountability systems are not aligned with our collective political mouths.
Since Jerry Brown was governor in 1980 to today, our prison population has gone up nearly seven-fold (700%) – from 24,569 to 171,085 while California’s population only increased by 56%. The math would suggest that we’ve probably not made the same level of investment in educating our population as we have in incarcerating people.
I was recently on Contessa Brewer’s show on MSNBC with Govenor Ed Rendell, and others where we briefly covered some of the budgetary challenges, national to local. To see our discussion, go to or click on http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/40830886#40967169).
There are no easy fixes, but we’ve got to get beyond business (talk) as usual.
California governments will be resource and revenue constrained for years if not forever since there are too many demands for taxes and taxpayers unwilling or unable to pay more taxes
Businesses and residents if taxed too much will leave California as we have seen since 2000 and census number reflect
The new normal in California is do more with less staff, less taxes and less expectation of more revenue, services, programs, new tax spending etc as industry and people do
Elected officials and government employees need to ” get it ” and be accountable for every tax dollar spent, do more with less, not expect any taxes more and stop whining that the solution is more taxes not less or they will lose what little credibility they still have
> “Since educational success in schools is correlated with income levels, we have a problem begging for a more systemic solution.”
Obviously, the answer to improving education system performance is to insure that all students come from high income families.
Cut taxes now!!!
That was too easy.
What is rarely discussed is student success and family structure
there are now so many kids coming from young, singe moms
And many from broken homes..
If the family structure were more stable…
> What is rarely discussed is student success and family structure
You are correct. It is rarely discussed because stable family structures and well-adjusted children are NOT the public education establishment’s interest or business, and worse, are actually BAD for the public education establishent.
If all children came from stable homes, and were motivated, and emotionally prepared to learn, class sizes could be twice the size, with no disruptive students, student learning would be accelerated dramatically, and there would be greatly reduced need for all the money guzzling add-on programs counselors, psychologists, special needs classes, tutors, aides, etc. etc.
Just as in the medical field, where sick people are good for business, in the public edcuation industry, educational failure is the fertile ground for future education industry expansion.
Joseph writes: “Since educational success in schools is correlated with income levels, we have a problem begging for a more systemic solution. States and municipalities must fight poverty with all their creative might.”
Joseph, the correlation of poverty and “success in schools” is more surface than myths suggest.
Let’s identify common ground on defining “success in schools.” I presume you mean English language literacy and mathematical literacy. Basic reading, writing, grammar and phonics skills. Sufficient proficiency with numbers to handle basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions and percentages without a calculator. Knowledge of geography, history, sociology, science, etc., all build on basic literacy skills. Music, art and foreign language all are valuable too, but for most students the screaming priorities are basic language and math proficiency.
These proficiencies develop out of diligence and from mutual accountability of school workers, of parents and of kids. Classwork matters. Homework matters. Structure matters. If some challenged schools can achieve, then all challenged schools can achieve. This is about choices – and not all choices are finance-driven.
Most teachers approach their assignments professionally and most California teachers are reasonably compensated for their efforts. Could some teachers make more money or find a better “fit” in the private sector? Yes. And would some teachers have a difficult time thriving in the private sector? Yes.
Hardly any private sector worker in the Bay Area is able to purchase a local residence today on a single income without significant frugal choices. A dual-income private sector family can purchase from scratch in the Bay Area, but still have to make frugal choices – and live daily with risk of layoff.
Academic success for today’s young people isn’t about paying teachers more than they are paid today. Academic success for today’s young people will spring from expecting high performance and then supporting high performance.
Please let’s focus on actual best practices that can be identified and replicated. This isn’t about “charter” vs “neighborhood” vs “private.” There are successes at all types of schools that “fight poverty” with “creative might.”
Its’ really sad that only two schools Rocketship Charter Schools in San Jose and Leroy Anderson Village School in Moreland made the ‘grade’ in Santa Clara county . Most of the county schools in this category are finding it more difficult to bridge the gap as imposed by the Federal government standards . Most of the public schools in Santa Clara county are using the same curriculum as Leroy Anderson , like Rosemary Elementary in Campbell School District of example , for two years the school has made ‘gains’ in it’s API only because the staff brought parents inline , and the ‘teachers’ got involved with the parents . A strong parental involvement is the key . Simply sending more money won’t cure the gap with low income students .
So there are many interesting comments that have already been posted. Some I agree with, others not. Education certainly is about more than just throwing money at the problem, however the fastest way to attract better teachers is by offering them salaries that are competitive with their peers. You want a “smart” teacher, then offer to pay them as much as an engineer or doctor. Far too often I hear intelligent peers tell me that while they’d love to teach they won’t because it isn’t as financially lucrative as other professions that they can succeed in. While my passion for teaching has always been my biggest motivator, that isn’t true for all prospective teachers. I am also fortunate in that I am married to an engineer so my income isn’t necessary for our survival. It will be necessary to purchase a house one day, but I don’t need to own a house in order to enjoy life. I’m sure that many will disagree, but if we wan’t competent teachers to change the nation, then we should respect them by paying them in a way that puts our money where our mouth is. I know how noble a profession teaching is and how I should feel the rewards of doing such a job, but I also know that in this country one of the most prominent ways we show respect is through paying people what “we” think they are worth. I don’t necessarily agree with this practice, but paying teachers a more competitive way would certainly be the fastest way to create more competition and a more competent workforce.
I agree that we need much more than money to bridge the achievement gap in schools. Anderson Elementary was one of the lowest performing schools in Santa Clara County in 2006. But, in the past three years, they have increased their API by 206 points! Yes, educational success is correlated with income levels, but I think motivated teachers can make a lot of difference. Having high expectations, family involvement and best instructional practices may be the ingredients for success in schools. Money is not the only solution to education. It requires the effort, desire and motivation of all the people involved in education to build a great community for our children.