Morning Shots

State Superintendent Jack O’Connell and California Teachers Association (CTA) President Barbara Kerr recently held a conference call discussing the Quality Education Improvement Act (QEIA), which will provide an additional $2.9 billion to about 500 low-performing schools over the next seven years. The measure was the result of the lawsuit filed by CTA against the governor charging that the governor had failed to live up to previous promises. According to David Tofosky, an LAUSD board member, the QEIA came out of a backroom deal between the governor, CTA and State Superintendent O’Connell.

In a rare disagreement among the powerful "Education Coalition", not everyone is thrilled with CTA’s solution. The California School Boards Association executive director, Scott Plotkin suggested that his organization is disappointed that the process was driven by CTA. His organization would prefer more flexibility in how the money is used.

QEIA calls for the money to be used for class size reduction, teacher training and additional school counselors. Because of the program’s requirements, for most schools, the bulk of the money will be required to implement class size reduction. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to suppose that this change will provide much in the way of increased student achievement or the closing of achievement gaps.

"Class-size reduction, especially in the magnitude here, just is not an effective intervention," CSBA assistant executive director Rick Pratt said. "The real key is what are the teachers going to do in those smaller classes."

In a review of education reforms throughout the state, University of California, Berkeley education researcher Bruce Fuller called it a “mistake to tie up most of the dollars in reducing class sizes – which yields achievement gains only under certain conditions.”

If class-size reduction doesn’t improve achievement, then why is it such a major aspect of this new reform plan?

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Three percent of Utah students currently attend private schools. In the Netherlands, the figure is 75 percent. The difference? The Dutch enacted their universal school voucher program in 1917, and Utah’s passed just last week.

In a nail-biting 38-37 vote, Utah’s heavily Republican House of Representatives passed the nation’s first universally available school choice program. The Senate followed, by a vote of 19-10, and Governor Jon Huntsman signed the bill into law.  Under the program, every family in Utah will receive a voucher worth between $3,000 per child (for the lowest income families) and $500 (for those with the highest incomes).  Parents will be able to redeem these vouchers at whatever private school they deem best for their kids.

Without a doubt, this is the most significant school choice legislation ever passed in the United States. But before school choice leaders start retiring or sending out their resumes, there are several important caveats to keep in mind.

The maximum value of Utah’s school vouchers is only about half of what the state’s public schools spend per pupil. This puts the private sector at a considerable disadvantage, particularly in its efforts to serve poorer families. In the Netherlands, all schools, public and private, are equally funded by vouchers, producing a level educational playing field.

One obvious effect of this financial discrimination against parents who choose private schools is that fewer new schools will be created. Fewer schools means less competition and fewer choices for parents, consequently undermining the market forces that school choice is meant to create.

The funding discrimination inherent in Utah’s voucher bill will also limit research and development spending, and curtail the ability of successful schools to pay for the expansion of their operations. This could end up inhibiting innovation and the dissemination of best practices.

Perhaps the biggest danger is that

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Science and technology knowledge doubles every four years, if not faster.  This means that any facts a freshman in college learns has a high chance of becoming obsolete by the time they graduate.  Who can guess what the world will like look when today’s kindergarteners enter the work force?  Will anybody work in an office setting?  Will people still carry cash?  Will marketers still be able to purchase commercials or even website ads? 

Nobody can answer these questions or hundreds more like them.  Yet, many educators see their job as preparing children for the future.  How can we possibly prepare students for an unknown future? 

The answer is simple: We can’t.  Nor should we even try to do so.   Instead, we should help our students develop the capacity to understand and influence the world in which they live.  Our students don’t yet live in the world of the future.  They live in today’s world.  Therefore, as educators we must help our students think about today.  If we do this, they’ll also develop the capacity to succeed tomorrow. 

So, how should educators help students think about today? 

Using and Developing Disciplinary Knowledge

Our students must learn to consider the fundamental questions of various academic disciplines through a lens of today.  For example, when studying math, questions and problems should relate to current events.  Sports games provide wonderful venues through which to consider arithmetic.  Local, and well known national and international construction efforts provide venues through which to grapple with higher level math. 

Consider the science questions that students can grappled with when they consider current events.  How and why does today technology work?  How can we advance today’s technological devices to develop more useful tools?  What is it about our physical world that enables technology to work as it

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