Opening half of huge study confirms the obvious dysfunction, but offers no solutions, yet

"California schools are in need of sweeping, comprehensive reforms if the state is to raise the quality of education and student achievement."

That's the unsurprising conclusion of a research project that includes 22 separate studies reviewed and conducted over a year and a half, costing nearly $3 million, paid for by big-name foundations and involving 30 researchers from "the nation's leading universities and research institutions."

The megastudy claims to have "rigorously" assessed how California's public schools, kindergarten through 12th grade, are run and financed. It concludes that "the problems are so deep-seated that more funding and small, incremental interventions are unlikely to make a difference unless matched with a commitment to wholesale reform."

Among the lowlights: California students on average ranked seventh from the bottom in eighth-grade math compared with allother states, third-lowest in reading and second-lowest in science, ahead of only Mississippi. The problem cannot be attributed merely to the state's large minority population, the study says. "California schools do not do well for any group."

It's interesting that such a Herculean effort was needed to come to the conclusion many Californians reached long ago. It's gratifying to verify the obvious. One of the study's heartening conclusions was: "[S]olely directing more money into the current system will not dramatically improve student achievement and will meet neither expectations or needs."

Key state lawmakers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, his staff and advisers were on hand Wednesday for the release of the first portion of the study, assessing how public schools are financed and governed. Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez declared the study will be a template for education legislation. These were the main points Wednesday:

• There are excessive regulations, and it's difficult to fire bad teachers or set teacher pay based on performance or need.
• It's difficult to adopt improvements even when they work.
• Reliance on state funding brings strings that hinder local decision-making.
• The report complains California is, "spending below the national average," yet acknowledges California spends $10,593 per student.
• School funding is unequal, but the greater complaint is: "Ultimately, we are most interested in the equity of results, that is, equity in terms of learning of students."
• School funding is mired in convoluted formulas and restrictions in raising local tax revenue while other states' restrictions are, "less severe" than California's. Taxpayers may like that, but the study's authors claim it results in more reliance on state funding, "not clearly linked to the districts' needs or district performance."
• The researchers sum up: "If our study has one overarching conclusion, it is simply this – California's school finance and governance systems are fundamentally flawed."

It's abundantly obvious these are problems endemic to large government bureaucracies. Yet, there is no discussion in the study of freeing students and parents from the leviathan's grip. While there is an acknowledgment that charter schools more easily dismiss bad teachers, and respond better to parents, there's nothing about vouchers for students to attend private schools.

The researchers seek to "improve the alignment between the accountability system and the decision-making responsibilities." That's almost a textbook description of how private enterprise works – people making decisions being held accountable to people paying the bill.

Obviously, such an "alignment" has little relevance to the insulated 6.8-million-student public education system with its multiple vested interests, bureaucratic fiefdoms, inherent inefficiencies and deaf ear to parents' complaints.

There was some refreshing candor in Wednesday's report: "[T]here is no evidence to support the idea that simply introducing yet more new programs will produce the desired achievement gains."

If more money isn't the answer, and if more programs aren't, either, then what?

'There isn't enough choice and open competition," said Alan Bonsteel, president of California Parents for Educational Choice, which was not involved in the study. The K-12 system is controlled by interests that seek "incremental changes rather than fundamental reform," he told us Wednesday.

"A true voucher system would be best, a scholarship of a percentage of what's being spent on government–run schools," Mr. Bonsteel said. If parents were given the full $10,593 spent per child by the government, there would be many private choices.

Also not involved in the study, Vicki Murray, senior policy fellow for education studies at the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market public policy think tank, is cautiously optimistic to see the second half of the study. But she points out a fundamental hurdle for delivering and pricing "adequate education."

"No one knows what an adequate education is, much less what it costs," Ms. Murray said. "What constitutes an adequate education for one student isn't necessarily adequate for another."

Wednesday's portion of the megastudy hinted at improving the ailing system. But monopolies left to themselves can't reasonably be expected to reform to benefit customers, even if some Orange County schools might outperform the state average. The state K-12 system is a monopoly on a scale that would make robber barons envious.

Sadly, we saw nothing in Wednesday's release addressing that underlying problem. The public school system is a monopoly bloated with ever-increasing tax dollars benefiting self-interested factions that gives parents and their children little alternative but to keep paying and reaping the unhappy consequences.

In 2006, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey found that 68 percent of the business community favored some form of vouchers. Will today's half of this megastudy address that issue? Will there be a suggestion to free children from the grip of state-run, tax-financed schools? We shall see.