Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown affixed his signature to a cluster of bills that, collectively, will downsize the Golden State's 2011-2012 budget by more than $11 billion.  While K-12 education will remain largely unaffected by these particular reductions in spending, higher education will take a hit, as funding for the state university system will be cut by approximately $1 billion, and community college fees will be bumped up from $26 to $36 a unit.  A number of social services will be reduced, or eliminated, as in the case of state-subsidized child care for 11 and 12-year-olds.  The Los Angeles Times reports the story, here, and the San Jose Mercury News covers the developments, here.

 

While substantial, the aforementioned reductions address approximately half of the estimated state deficit for the coming fiscal year, prompting the Governor to remark, "It's going to be much, much worse if we cannot get the vote of the people and the tax extensions."   The extensions to which the Governor refers involve temporary increases to the state sales tax, personal income tax, and state vehicle registration fee, each of which is set to expire this summer.  Mr. Brown hopes to ask the people of the state to approve a five-year extension of the increases via a special election, but is four votes short of obtaining the required legislative authorization.  Mr. Brown recently complained that any thought of increasing taxes appears to be "too threatening and too anxiety-provoking and too career-ending" for Republican legislators to provide him with the needed votes.

 

Meanwhile, the most recent Public Policy Institute of California poll shows that support for a special election is waning.  As recently as January, an estimated 66 percent of likely voters expressed support for such an election.  That figure has now dipped to 51 percent.  Support has declined from 73 to 64 percent among Democrats, and has fallen from 55 to 34 percent among Republicans.  The precipitous decline in Republican support is thought likely to embolden Republican opposition to compromise overtures from the Governor.  

 

The same poll shows that the Governor's approval rating has fallen by 7 points since early January, and by 6 points among likely voters.  (The approval rating bestowed upon the California Legislature by likely voters currently stands at a dismal 16 percent.)  If the temporary tax and fee increases are not extended, the state stands to lose an estimated $11 billion in revenue.

 

Some pundits have begun to speculate on the political machinations that would ensue should Republican legislators succeed in blocking a special election and continue to stonewall any and all tax increases.  One particularly interesting observation was offered by Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Morain:  "If there is no deal, and Brown follows through on his pledge to cut more deeply, he and Democrats who control the budget process could ensure that further reductions fall disproportionately on Republican areas. Suburban parents - who vote - might not be happy if their children's teachers are laid off."  Mr. Morain then quotes Republican strategist Rob Stutzman: "Good schools are going to get hammered. Most of those good schools are in suburban Republican districts."

 

The state's largest teachers union, the California Teachers Association has launched a campaign designed to promote the message: "Let the voters decide."  The organization's website features a woman (presumably a teacher) holding a sign that reads: "Stop Stealing $ from Kids!  Let the Voters Decide!"  According to the CTA: "In order to keep funding at its current, already slashed-to-the-bone level, voters will need to extend income and sales taxes and the current Vehicle License Fee for 5 years. Otherwise, education would be looking at another $4-5 billion in cuts."

 

What will the CTA do if a special election is held and the voters reject the extention of the temporary tax and fee increases?  The above-mentioned PPIC poll found that support for such extensions among likely voters has also waned in recent months, and now stands at 46 percent.  Should Governor Brown win approval for the election, the CTA is certain to go "all in" to shore up those numbers.  For all concerned, the coming months will pose a different form of "high stakes testing."  Stay tuned!

Education Week has launched a series of articles accompanied by blog-based responses offered by an array of "leading thinkers from the academic, business, philanthropic, government, and public policy sectors."  Organized by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, "The Futures of School Reform" will feature the thinking of 18 distinguished contributors as they respond to the question: If we keep doing what we're doing, are we going to get there?  The blog, which will remain operational for two months, is introduced by Harvard University Professor Jal Mehta, here.

  

A prefatory column penned by three project contributors contains a surprising (and refreshing) admission: "...we are decidedly not championing 'innovation.' After all, decades of experience have left educators and parents justifiably skeptical of what is often little more than slick, vacuous jargon. When a fresh idea that may hold promise does come along, it is all too often oversold as a miracle cure. Advocates demand that favored measures be adopted everywhere, as rapidly as possible-until sensible ideas are turned into ill-conceived fads that eventually lose favor. The result is a tyranny of sequential orthodoxies: a succession of ill-designed or oversold schemes that take good ideas and then try to supersize them into inevitably disappointing new orthodoxies."  Conceding that "most reforms amount to little more than an attempt to slather a nifty new paint job on the old chassis," contributors to the project will endeavor "to think about how we might begin to re-engineer that very chassis for new terrain and for making use of newly available tools, talent, and technology."

  

The Family Research Council has published a thought provoking pamphlet titled Who Should Decide How Children are Educated?  The publication is authored by longtime CAPSO friend Jack Klenk, who served for 27 years in the U.S. Department of Education, where he ultimately headed the Office of Non-Public Education.  In the pamphlet, Mr. Klenk identifies five critical barriers to parental authority over their children's education, while making the case for according primacy in educational decision-making to parents.  It's an informative and stimulating exposition that can either be downloaded in PDF format at no cost, or ordered in hard copy form, and delivered via U.S. mail, here.

  

  

  

Opportunity Schools is a nonprofit organization whose mission consists of "Unlocking the hidden potential of students with learning challenges."  Each year, the organization's Teacher Training Institute offers a week-long program designed to better equip teachers "to be more effective with all students, not just students with challenges."  This year's Summer Training, to take place June 20-24 in Long Beach, has adopted the theme, "Building a Better Brain," and will feature sessions conducted by Carolyn Coil, Kim Sutton, Vicki Newman, and Jeanne Ruiz.  A one-page program overview brochure can be accessed, here; workshop details can be downloaded, here, and a registration form and map of the training location can be found, here.

  

  

  

From Facing History and Ourselves

  

Facing History and Ourselves, in partnership with PBS's flagship history series, American Experience, is pleased to offer a free study guide and resource-rich website to accompany Freedom Riders, the harrowing and ultimately inspirational film about more than 400 black and white college students who risked their lives in 1961 by simply traveling together on a journey through the Deep South. The film airs on PBS May 16th, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides. 

 

Download our free study guide, Democracy in Action: A study guide to accompany the film Freedom Riders, today! Filled with primary source readings, historic photographs, and questions to stimulate classroom discussions, the study guide prompts students to consider the relationship between the political context in which the Freedom Rides took place and the stories and motivations of those who became Freedom Riders. You can also find the study guide, film clips, and more on our website for the film.

 

 

2011 EdSource Forum Videos Available for Online Viewing

 

Each year, EdSource - a California nonprofit organization that provides information and clarifies complex K-14 education issues - presents a Forum at which leading policy makers, practitioners, and elected officials are invited to speak.  The theme of this year's event was "The Future for Public Education in California."  Those who are interested can view videos of the following sessions, here:

 

• California's Fiscal Crisis and its Impact on K-12 Education and Community Colleges  (Mac Taylor, California's Legislative Analyst, and Mark Baldassare, President, Public Policy Institute of California);
• California's New Common Core K-12 Academic Standards (Sue Stickel, Assistant Superintendent of K-12 Curriculum and Intervention, Sacramento County Office of Education, Deb Sigman, Deputy Superintendent, Curriculum, Learning, and Accountability Branch, California Department of Education, and Gavin Payne, Education Policy Consultant);
• Next Generation Learning and Technology (John Danner, Co-founder and CEO of Rocketship Education, and Joel Rose, Founder and CEO, School of One, New York City Department of Education), and,
• View From the Top: New State Education Policy Leadership (Tom Torlakson, State Superintendent of Public Instruction).

The recent meeting of the Council for American Private Education's State-CAPE Network executives featured an impassioned discussion of the appropriate posture to be taken by the nation's private school community toward charter schools.  As is so often the case, the most interesting conversations tend to arise when proponents of conflicting viewpoints confer validity upon opposing perspectives and claims.  Which makes the consideration of a position on charter schools both difficult and fascinating.

  

Reports from a number of states indicated that the proliferation of charter schools has produced a corresponding decrease in private school enrollment.  The evidence, while anecdotal, was plentiful.  Moreover, it appears that some charter operators have seized upon a marketing strategy designed to drive the perception that charters are "free private schools."  While word of such practice was roundly criticized as false advertising, it spawned a spirited discussion regarding whether charters can properly lay claim to middle ground separating public and private schools.  While some were adamant that no middle ground exists, others argued that by virtue of being publicly funded and privately governed, charter schools can be regarded as a hybrid.  (Readers may recall this recent E-Mailer article which identified a Chicago charter school that, after receiving some $23 million in public funding, argued it is really a private school, in an effort to prevent its teachers from unionizing.)

  

One interesting argument offered in opposition to charter schools consisted of the observation that to the extent that charters siphon students out of private schools, they cost the state money, and diminish per-pupil allocations.  At the same time, such attrition tends to exert inflationary effects upon private school tuition, as schools seek to recover lost revenue.  The upshot is a sort of vicious cycle that can be regarded as damaging to both private and "traditional" (i.e. non-charter) public schools.

  

While evidence presented in favor of a position of outright opposition to charter schools elicited much (vertical) head nodding, other voices rose in dissent.  To oppose charter schools, it was argued, would both invite justifiable charges of hypocrisy, and would likely be perceived by the public as self-serving.  After all, it was asked, how can private school leaders champion the principle of parental choice while wishing to remove charter schools from the range of options available to parents?  And, if the competition produced by the expansion of options can be assumed to drive public schools to improve, why shouldn't the same principle apply to private schools?  More (vertical) head nodding.

  

In the grip of an apparent quandary, we were rescued by words of wisdom imparted by Jim Cultrara, the New York State Catholic Conference's Director for Education and Co-Chairman of the New York Coalition for Independent and Religious Schools.  Jim's advice - and I'm loosely paraphrasing - consisted of delivering the following message to legislators and others:  We encourage your support of parental choice, which includes making charter schools available from among a range of available options.  But if you're going to promote choice, don't limit the options available to low-income families.  Jim's Solomonic formulation conditions support for charter schools on a willingness to better empower families of limited means to make the choice of a religious or independent school from among an array of options that include "traditional" public schools, charter schools, and home schools.

  

Jim contributed another brilliant insight.  He noted that if parents should fail their children through abuse or neglect, the state is empowered to remove children from a household to protect their well being.  When state schools consistently fail the children who attend them, however, the state effectively bars those parents lacking for means from removing their children.  Well said, Jim!  I suspect more heads are nodding (vertically).

  

Ron Reynolds