What is the real state of education in California? Although many people may have a feeling that the public education system is not operating well, the reality is that things are much worse than they can imagine. Pacific Research Institute’s recently released California Education Report Card examines 17 different education categories and the results are dismal, with six Fs, five Ds, four Cs, one B, and one A. This is a report card that no one would want to bring home to mom and dad, let alone the California public which is paying for this mostly non-performing system.

The system’s poor performance is widespread ranging from test scores of students to the treatment of students who do not speak English to remedial instruction rates to the state’s education finance system. For instance, student performance on the California Standards Test, which is the main indicator of student performance in our standards-based education system, receives an F because six out of 10 students in grades two through 11 scored below the proficient level in English language arts and math in 2006. Also about seven out of 10 African-American and Hispanic students scored below proficiency in those two core subjects. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, every student must be achieving at the proficient level in math and English by 2013-14.

Students are not doing well on the state test for many reasons, but one reason is that many are not being asked to take tough coursework. Difficulty of coursework in California gets a D. Fewer students in California take difficult math and science courses compared to the national average and to states like Texas. Further, a large majority of students, especially African Americans and Hispanics, are not taking the so-called A-G courses needed to enter the University of California or the California State University. Thus, when UC officials complain about the repeal of race preferences under Prop. 209, they would do better to focus their energies on getting the K-12 system to produce more university-eligible students.

The state’s efforts to ensure that all non-English speaking students, so-called English language learners (EL), become fluent in English gets a D+. This grade is due not to the performance of students. In 2005-06, about half of students taking the California English Language Development Test scored at levels that would qualify them to be reclassified as fluent in English. Yet, local school districts have adopted additional requirements for reclassification such as grades, scores on other tests, or teacher recommendations.

These added requirements have resulted less than 10 percent of EL students being reclassified as English fluent every year. Further, research on the California High School Exit Exam shockingly shows that more than half of 10th-grade EL students are kept in the EL category for 10 years or more. Several state reports indicate that because of self-interested funding concerns, many school districts hesitate to reclassify EL students as being fluent in English even if they have met fluency requirements. The result is that many EL students have important academic opportunities closed off to them.

Much has been made of the fact that around 90 percent of the Class of 2007 has passed the English and math sections of the California High School Exit Exam. While the exam has motivated students to try harder, the reality is that it is relatively easy to pass the exam. A student only has to answer correctly 55 percent of math questions and 60 percent of English-language-arts questions in order to pass. Further, there is no data assessing the relationship between passing the exam and getting into college and avoiding remedial instruction in math and English once having entered college. The PRI Report Card gives the high school exit exam a grade of C-.

Indeed, one only has to look at the rates of remedial instruction at state universities to wonder about the quality of the high school exit exam. Remedial instruction rates get an F because more than half of incoming California State University freshmen in 2005 required either remedial instruction in English language arts or math. These remedial students have a solid “B” high school GPA and are supposedly in the top one-third of high school graduates. Yet, at a campus like Cal State Los Angeles, 65 percent of entering freshmen needed remedial math and 76 percent needed remedial English. The mean high school GPA of entering CSU Los Angeles freshmen needing math remediation was 3.16, while those needing remediation in English was 3.17.

Many educators, when confronted by these failures, argue that the state has not allocated enough tax dollars to deal with the problems. However, PRI’s Report Card gives California’s education finance system an F, not because of inadequate funding, since inflation-adjusted funding per pupil has gone up dramatically over the last decade, but because too many of these tax dollars are being wasted on state programs that have yet to show success. Total education funding per pupil in 2006-07 is $11,264, which is a 27 percent real inflation-adjusted increase over total education funding per pupil in 1996-97.

Yet, California does not spend its money well.

The state operates more than 60 education programs where tax dollars are directed for specific purposes. Most of these programs have not been shown to be successful, and the state often has little idea how the funds are actually spent. The state’s class-size reduction program in grades K-3, which has eaten up $16 billion over a ten-year period, has produced little increase in student achievement, but the state continues to spend nearly $2 billion a year on the program, and, in fact, will be expanding this ineffective program to more grades.

Even where there is good news, such as the A given to the state’s rigorous academic content standards, there has been inconsistent implementation of the standards in the classroom, to the extent that many do not even use standards-aligned textbooks.

The Report Card not only assesses the state’s education performance, it also contains various recommendations, including urging greater use of effective school models, especially those that produce high student achievement at schools with high-poverty student populations. There are such successful schools, but many low-performing schools and districts inexplicably choose to ignore them.

California has made some improvement in education over the years, but not nearly enough. There are still far too many children in California who are not proficient in basic subjects, who are not receiving high quality instruction in the classroom, and who are the victims of low expectations. The information contained in PRI’s California Education Report Card should be used by education leaders, lawmakers and ordinary Californians in deciding whether we are getting the best bang for our buck in our public education system, and then how best to ensure that we do.