Huge research project reviews funding and governance of state’s schools
The release this week (March 16, 2007) of exhaustive research into virtually every aspect of California’s complex systems for governing and funding K-12 public schools sets the stage for results from a separate comprehensive study by the California School Boards Association and its research partners to identify workable strategies for fixing what’s wrong with the system.
It took two days and hours of press briefings to summarize the major findings included in “Getting Down to Facts,” the umbrella title given to the 23 studies released March 14-15 in Sacramento. The research was requested by the governor’s Committee on Education Excellence, state School Superintendent Jack O’Connell, state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez. Funded by four national foundations and coordinated by Stanford University, the voluminous project is—according to its principal authors—“an unprecedented attempt to synthesize what we know as a basis for convening the necessary public conversations on what we should do.”
What we know, researchers said, is that “California’s school finance and governance systems are fundamentally flawed” and, as a result, students here lag behind comparable students in other states.
The reports stressed that piecemeal reforms, such as new categorical programs, haven’t worked in the past and won’t help in the future. Although the state may have to significantly increase its investment in California schools to support better services for students, money alone won’t fix what’s wrong. New spending must be part of a comprehensive overhaul of the system, the reports concluded.
That overhaul should include a system to track progress of individual students, more local control over how money is spent, relief from cumbersome and inflexible Education Code requirements, authority to more easily dismiss bad teachers, predictable state budgets and equitable funding among districts.
The reports said California has not linked school spending to the standards it expects students to meet. In fact, the main “costing-out” study estimated that the state would have to increase school funding by at least 40 percent to attain its achievement goals.
“In the short term, while there will be much to like and dislike in individual studies, it is important to note that the main themes emerging from the project are really quite supportive of positions CSBA has advocated on behalf of local school boards and the children they serve,” said CSBA Executive Director Scott P. Plotkin.
Survey seeks consensus on reform and investment
Some of the same foundations that supported “Getting Down to Facts,” principally the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, also financed the work under way now by CSBA, the League of Women Voters, Children Now and the PTA.
As part of that study, which is nearing completion, surveyors asked key leaders in business, education, government and community-based organizations for their thoughts on school funding and structural reform in K-12 education.
Researchers at CSBA and its survey partners say they hope that insights from this survey and data analysis will provide the catalyst for transforming the wealth of “Getting Down to Facts” research into the essential consensus that’s needed for action.
“It is our hope that the package of K-12 research released this week reinforces what we have heard over the last year from the key opinion leaders we surveyed,” said Dr. Kathy Kinley, president of CSBA. “There are so many different opinions and ideas as to how best to reform education in California, but our survey results point to there being some shared principles that can bring divergent groups together.”
All these research projects are closely tied to CSBA’s ongoing adequacy campaign, which is aimed at tying school investment to the actual cost of educating California students.
“I can honestly say that these studies are unique, and I applaud the effort by our policy-makers in calling for them,” said Plotkin. “However, findings alone will not do the trick. After these reports are released it’s critical that the governor, the Legislature and other state leaders come together around a set of recommendations that will achieve the lofty goals that all parties have for California’s schools.”