Louis Freedberg

Louis Freedberg

The passage of Proposition 30 represents a major victory for public schools, and for Governor Jerry Brownish, only nonetheless to be tackled are multiple challenges facing California'south education time to come.

Here are viii principal challenges:

ane.  Bringing the state's funding levels upward to the U.Due south. boilerplate

Latest estimates rank California 46th in per capita spending compared to other states. Over the past decade, the gap between California spending per pupil and the national average has grown from $691 in 2001-02 to $2856 in 2010-11. According to the California Budget Projection, only bringing California to the national average – allow alone the highest-spending states like Massachusetts or New Bailiwick of jersey – would cost $17.three billion, three times more than the amount raised by Prop. 30. The discrepancy raises a basic event of fairness: Should California'south children be subjected to a less effective education than their peers in many others states just because they happened to be born hither?

2.  Achieving funding equity among California school districts

Beyond California'due south lagging backside other states, there are major discrepancies among school districts in how much is spent on instruction. In many cases, current funding formulas don't have into account the additional effort and costs involved with educating students from disadvantaged or English learner backgrounds. Gov. Dark-brown has proposed funding based on a "weighted student formula" to give additional funds to school districts serving high-needs students. But it is far from articulate whether it volition be possible to do so without diverting funds – and generating resistance – from wealthier school districts.

3.  Implementing new accountability and testing systems

The  accountability systems established past the No Child Left Behind law did non result in a dramatic transformation in school performance. California is now in the process of implementing the Mutual Core State Standards adopted past 46 states – too equally gearing up for new computer-based testing systems that will replace California'due south current standardized testing regimen, the California Standards Test. Enormous amounts of work remain to be done in implementing both the standards and the new assessment systems – and it is far from clear how many school districts volition have the capacity to do so successfully in the brusque time frame they volition exist given.

4.  Restoring core programs trimmed or eliminated equally a upshot of budget cuts

Proposition 30 volition not provide funding to restore programs trimmed or eliminated over the past five years since the beginning of the Great Recession. Depending on the commune, these include a shorter instructional agenda; the erosion of the Yard-3 class size reduction programme; reduced counseling staff; cuts in music, fine art and physical education programs; and the drastic shrinkage or elimination of summer and adult school programs. At that place is an ongoing debate over the effectiveness of the course size reduction programs, but there is no doubt that schools are nether far greater stresses in coming together the needs of individual students than they were earlier the Great Recession.

five. Helping students from economically distressed households succeed in schoolhouse

Big numbers of children live in households where parents are unemployed, facing the prospect of foreclosure, or dealing with other impacts of the state'due south struggling economic system. Many of these children need more than individual help, counseling, or mental wellness services. Others need academic back up to help compensate for the stressful habitation environment they live in – or neighborhoods characterized by loftier levels of unemployment, housing foreclosures, and violence. Nevertheless schools lack the resource to address the needs of the whole kid, not just his or her educational needs in the classroom.

6.  Managing the costs of special instruction

Equally the cost of special education services rises – driven in part past the nearly fourfold increment in the  number of students diagnosed every bit autistic – school districts face up enormous challenges in underwriting the costs of mandatory services called for in a student's Individual Education Plan. The federal government continues to provide eleven to 12 percent of the cost of special instruction services despite their being mandated in the early 1970s by the Individuals with Disabilities Teaching Human activity approved past Congress, with local districts and Sacramento having to make up the difference.

seven.  Linking the school curriculum more directly with college and careers

The latest buzz phrase in education reform circles is "career and college readiness" – ensuring that students leave high schoolhouse with the skills they need to  succeed in college and the globe of work, while making the high schoolhouse curriculum relevant and engaging to them. Already a central dimension of the Obama Administration'south education reform agenda, new legislation (SB1458) signed into police by Governor Brown will button that concept onto the front burner of state education policy every bit well.

viii.  Expanding engineering science in the classroom

School districts face up the challenge of using online tools and technology to better the effectiveness of classroom instruction – and to tailor didactics for students with particular teaching needs. In add-on, school districts will need to exist able to offer computerized assessments being developed for implementation of the Common Core State Standards in California. But many districts don't have either the hardware or software that they need to accept advantage of the contributions the digital revolution tin can brand to the classroom.

Celebrating Suggestion 30'due south passage is entirely appropriate. In providing stop-gap funding, Prop. 30 is a hugely important first step towards reversing the state'south decades-long disinvestment in its public school system. Simply for educators on the forepart lines of our schools, the euphoria will exist tempered past the knowledge of the work that must withal be washed to raise student achievement to earth-form levels.

Louis Freedberg is executive director of EdSource, a nonpartisan, non profit Oakland-based organization founded in 1977 to engage Californians on fundamental education challenges.

Exercise you lot accept any challenges you think should exist added to this list?  Please apply the comments section beneath to share your thoughts.

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