The Examiner, April 16, 2007
Los Angeles Times (Political Muscle blog), April 16, 2007
Flash Report, April 16, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Reform Agenda went down in defeat nearly two years ago in an ill-advised referendum. Ever since, he’s been showing signs of post-partisan depression, drifting farther and farther left. A new education report released last month could be just what the Governator needs to get his groove back.

The 1,700-page Getting Down to Facts report, the most thorough review to date of the state’s public education system, confirms what research and common sense have long shown: pouring more money into California’s dysfunctional system won’t improve student performance. Though not designed to offer specific reforms, several themes emerged.

California’s public education governance is one of the most micromanaged yet least informed systems in the country since the state does not gather even the most basic performance and spending information. The system of finance is illogical, inflexible, and inequitable, driven more by special interest politics than hard data. The inability to fire bad teachers also remains a major obstacle to school improvement.

“It is clear … that solely directing more money into the current system will not dramatically improve student achievement,” say Getting Down to Facts authors. “The structural 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,” the report concludes.

Schwarzenegger declared the report needs “to be taken very seriously by everyone in the education debate. ... This is just a starting point for what I hope will be a renewed focus in the Legislature on increasing student achievement with needed reform.” To succeed, his resolve will have to match his tough rhetoric because entrenched special interests are already chanting their mantra of “resources equal reform.”

Results were released in January to the handful of political leaders who requested report. They include the governor’s Committee on Education Excellence; Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland; Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles; and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell. Findings were supposed to be confidential until the mid-March public release. However, sensationalized leaks that California public schools are under-funded sprung the week before. They ranged from $20 billion to more than $1.5 trillion annually.

“Let’s not ... use the most sensationally high-cost estimates to torpedo efforts at real reform,” O’Connell urged. But for reform opponents, it was bombs away. Assembly Education Committee Chairperson Gene Mullin, D-South San Francisco, said efforts to simplify the process of firing bad teachers, which averages five years, will be met with “a pitched battle.” California Teachers Association President Barbara E. Kerr added, “Let’s get over this part.” She vowed the CTA will fight reform efforts unless accompanied by a simultaneous, “substantial investment in new education funding.” There goes Assembly Speaker Núñez’s assurance that his caucus is willing to put real reform on the table.

If the Governator is serious about 2008 being “The Year of Education,” then he’ll need some new moves besides his causes célèbres soft-shoe with the left. He’ll also have to stop stomping on the right’s toes by recalling that certain conservative principles weren’t so “irrelevant” back when he proclaimed Ronald Reagan Day and Milton Friedman Day. Principles such as putting parents, not politicians and special interests, in charge of their children’s education.

But all parents, regardless of income or address, must be empowered to act on that information through unfettered district, charter, and non-public school choice. Otherwise California’s education year will amount to just another song and dance, not the “Sacramento Miracle” Schwarzenegger promised when first elected.

Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D., is a senior fellow in Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute in Sacramento.