California public schools need better oversight and guidance

from Dan WaltersCalMatters

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Shortly after beginning his second term as California governor in 2011, Jerry Brown began promoting a bipartisan overhaul of how the state funds public schools.

Brown proposed eliminating, or at least reducing, “categorical grants,” which were earmarked for specific purposes, and instead providing additional funds to schools with large number of children left behind on academic skills.

Brown said what became known as Local control funding formula i would give local educators flexibility and additional resources to develop curricula that meet what their students need to succeed, supported by input from local parents and civic leaders.

It was a favorite concept of Stanford University professor Michael Kirst, who had long been Brown’s most trusted educational adviser.

Education reformers pressing politicians and the educational establishment to do something about the mediocre—at best—levels of academic achievement in California schools generally supported the concept, except for one aspect.

Brown wanted to leave implementation to local school boards and administrators, a concept he called “subsidiarity”, extrapolating it from the Catholic Church’s doctrine of the empowerment of individuals.

Reformers worried that putting more money in the hands of local school districts, with no oversight to make sure it was spent effectively, would lead to it being diverted into administration and more generous union contracts instead of hands-on education for the kids who needed it most.

Brown insisted that a mechanism built into the new system requiring local schools to adopt performance improvement plans, backed by broad state accountability measures, would be sufficient.

Experience has proven otherwise.

The state’s accountability program turned out to be a jargon-filled mash-up of academic and non-academic elements of a “dashboard” that was almost impossible to understand and did not give parents an accurate idea of ​​whether their children were learning to read, write and use mathematics.

The local plans that were supposed to guide educational improvements were similarly dense, often formulaic rather than truly reflecting the wishes of parents. Counties, especially the big ones, would be concerned with how the money was being used and if caught, would get a pass from state officials. Reformers often had to sue to get districts to use the money as Brown said it would.

Finally, 13 years after the local control funding formula emerged, its accountability flaws were recognized in a major study of California’s public school system, titled Getting to know the factspublished this month by Stanford University.

He explores many aspects of the system other than Brown’s case, but leaves no doubt that subsidiarity does not work well.

“California has many accountability tools and data systems, but they are not well connected to each other or with clear guidance and support” for schools and educators, Susanne Loeb, director of the study. her resume says.

“Governance structures are fragmented and policies have proliferated over time, often creating disjointed, conflicting and burdensome guidance for schools,” she wrote. “The system produces information without consistently converting that information into action.”

School districts face a lot of ambiguity about “what constitutes effective practice” and heavy administrative burdens, she added: “In areas like math instruction, lessons and curriculum, local leaders must navigate consequential decisions with limited clear guidance and heavy compliance requirements, even when the research base is strong.”

The state board and local improvement plans touted by Brown are criticized in the report, essentially confirming concerns that reformers have raised but ignored.

Loeb notes that California schools are at a “tipping point” on many levels. Maybe the study will convince those in the Capitol to pay attention this time.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.