By Nancy Lippe
 Moe |
Charter schools, school funding and local control over state-mandated programs are among the issues that surfaced when local educators, Stanford University professors, community leaders and parents joined with the Los Altos-Mountain View League of Women Voters to examine the future direction of state education policy.
The California League of Women Voters is rewriting its education consensus positions, last updated in 1985. Consensus positions are policy positions voted on by league members, for which local, county and state leagues can lobby. The questions for this update concerned five broad areas: equity, school finance, school governance, accountability and assessment, and the public’s role in public education.
Last fall, the Los Altos-Mountain View league began working with local educators to prepare a presentation to local members. The team included Mountain View-Whisman School District Superintendent Eleanor Yick and Assistant Superintendent Rebecca Wright, Stanford’s Michael Kirst, outgoing and incoming Mountain View-Whisman school board presidents Rose Filicetti and Ellen Wheeler, and Los Altos league education committee members Roberta Holliman, Vicki Hobel Schultz, Delia Ybarra, Lynette Eng and the author of this article.
Mountain View Mayor Matt Neely, who is also assistant principal of Mountain View High School, and league member Cynthia Greaves moderated two community meetings in which educators helped league members work through the consensus questions. Two weeks ago, the board of the Los Altos-Mountain View league approved the positions, which will be sent to the state league for further consideration.
The local group first considered broad questions such as: Is it the state’s obligation to provide an equitable education for all students? (Yes.) Is it meeting this obligation? (No). Why? (Misalignment of governance, funding and accountability structures.) In what ways can the state exercise its constitutional responsibility to provide sustainable, transparent, adequate and timely funding to equitably meet the needs of all students? (Change school funding models.)
The group agreed that charter schools should be encouraged because they have the potential to inspire other public schools. However, they decided that charter schools should be evaluated against all other school-choice models, including magnet schools and voucher systems. Participants also felt strongly that charter schools need better, and perhaps more comprehensive, accountability.
Because local school systems lack control over policy decisions, the local league recommended that the state public school system be realigned to match responsibility with accountability and authority. For example, the state should provide the resources to make policy implementable at the local level. If a student has to pass the high school exit exam, then what resources is the state providing to ensure that success? The local league also suggested eliminating the secretary of education position, currently an advisory post; making the state board of education an elected, regionally representative body; empowering the board to develop and respond to policy; and having the elected state superintendent chair this board.
League members also were dissatisfied with current school funding models. Armed with data about Proposition 13, Serrano-Priest, Williams and other landmark decisions, participants voted to support an adequacy-based funding system. Rather than taking money and dividing it between school districts, the adequacy model requires the state to figure out how much it costs to educate students and fund accordingly. With California’s recent adoption of rigorous state standards on desired education outcomes, the local league members voted to support state-level initiatives, such as working through the currently idle Quality Education Commission to determine the real cost of educating students.
The local league also supported making assessment methods and data collection more useful for teachers in teaching to every child; making preschool universally available but voluntary; and revising the rewards (non-monetary) and sanctions (punishment undermines motivation) system for school districts to inspire ongoing improvements in instruction and professional development.
The two-year education study, sponsored by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, culminates this summer when members of the league’s state education committee consider local leagues’ positions.
As a follow-up to the education study, a new series of community dialogues on education will focus on performance. The first in the series, “School Choice: What are the opportunities? What are the challenges? What role does choice (charter schools, magnet schools, vouchers) play in high-performing school districts?” features Marge Gratiot, superintendent of the Los Altos School District; Terry Moe, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution; and Don Shalvey, the founder of Aspire Public Schools. Neely will moderate. The event is scheduled for 4-6 p.m., Sunday, in the Hillview Community Center multipurpose room.
Other dialogues will include a conversation about stress and performance with Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District Superintendent Rich Fischer in April, and in May a state budget simulation exercise with the California Center for Regional Leadership.
For more information, contact Nancy Lippe at 949-5908 or nlippe@losaltoscf.org, or logon to the Los Altos-Mountain View Area League of Women Voters Web site, www.lwvlamv.org, or the California League of Women Voters Education Study Web site, www.ca.lwv.org.
