View from Lodi, CA: Our Overwhelmed Public Schools
California can never have a sound
educational system as long as our borders are open. No
amount of
school bond money can keep up with the numbers of
children who arrive in California each year.
That is the bottom line. We can
pretend that the root cause is
insufficient funds, poor teaching or lousy
infrastructure.
We can form blue ribbon panels like
the Quality Education Commission to study California
schools. But in the end, it comes back to simply too
many kids with too many needs
coming to California too fast.
Consider as already spent the $12.3
billion generated by
Proposition 55. The $13.1 billion by
Proposition 47 in 2002—less than
two years ago! – is a distant memory.
In Los Angeles, Measure R—the
third bond measure in seven years for the
Los Angeles Unified School District—will provide
$3.87 billion for the construction of 50 new schools.
The open borders crisis
exacerbates the already horrendous condition of
California schools. Hardly a correct decision regarding
schools has been made in the last four decades.
On February 5th, PBS aired First
to Worst, a documentary that chronicles the dramatic
fall of California schools over the last generation from
first in the nation to at or near the bottom.
In one of the film`s dramatic
moments Jim Deasy, the superintendent of the
Santa Monica-Malibu School District is asked what
California parents would do if they could see the
functional schools in Michigan, Iowa or Connecticut.
Without a pause, Deasy says,
“They`d move.”
In the 1960s, California schools
were the envy of the nation. But according to the latest
National Assessment of Education Progress, an annual
evaluation of student achievement, California is
currently tied for last among the 50 states in
eighth-grade reading, and is 47th in fourth-grade
reading.
Everything about our schools is in
disrepair, according to First to Worst. Across
the state, thousands of schools don`t have the necessary
resources for full class days, sports, special needs
students, guidance counselors or even textbooks.
In many cases, schools rely on
parent fund-raising and donations to help provide the
so-called extras. Naturally, students from lower income
families suffer the most.
First to Worst provides a
time-line of variables that shows how California schools
have become so dysfunctional:
- 1965—Immigration:
In 1962, California`s population was 17 million with 8% non-white residents. But the Immigration Reform
and Control Act opened the doors to huge waves of
immigrants. The demographic change was profound. Today,
more than 55% of students are Hispanic or Asian; 25% are
English Language Learners. Between 1980 and 2000, the
student population—fueled by immigration—grew by an
average of 100,000 each year. California schools are
severely overcrowded with numerous elementary and middle
schools serving more than 1,000 students.
- 1978—Proposition
13: Property tax rates were reduced by 57% and tax
revenue available to schools dropped proportionately.
Equally important, Prop 13 changed how public schools
are managed. A local school system gave way to state
managed education bogged down in a bureaucratic maze.
- 1988-1994—Whole
Language Reform: California adopted a new English
Language Arts framework that embraced a method of
teaching reading called
“whole language”. Children were “immersed”
in literature but did not learn how to
sound out words. Whole-language textbooks were
adopted by the state, and districts had no choice but to
comply with state regulations if they wanted funding.
Whole language was a disaster and thousands of children
never learned how to read effectively.
- 1996—Class
Size Reduction: In the mid-1990s, California
elementary schools had the largest average class size in
the nation—29 students. But when then Governor Pete
Wilson passed legislation that reduced K-3 to 20
students or less, a host of unexpected problems cropped
up: classroom and qualified teachers shortages were
among the most serious. In his book,
The Worm in the Apple, Peter Brimelow writes
that
class size reduction “requires an enormous in
resources devoted to education. Right off the bat, the
bill for teacher salaries alone would increase by 20%.”
Analysts are always promising that
improvements are just around the corner. With only a few
billion more we`re told, California`s schools can
recapture their prominence.
Sorry, that is not the view from
this corner. We can`t keep up—period.
And
Michael Kirst, professor of education, business
administration and political science
agrees.
Said Kirst:
“I
think the big picture is that California grows so
rapidly. If we were like Pennsylvania, for example,
where the population was steady or declining, we
wouldn`t be in this condition. The state of California
grew six million people between 1980 and 1990. Several
years our school enrollments went up by over 200,000 a
year. We grew four million people between 1990 and 2000.
So we`re always having 100,000 or more students to
accommodate, and the rapid growth often takes place in
areas that don`t have the financial wherewithal to build
schools rapidly to meet them.”
Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English
at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly
column since 1988. It currently appears in the
Lodi News-Sentinel.


