May 2005

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Guest Commentary

Jim Lanich, Ph.D., is president of California Business for Education Excellence, based in Sacramento.

It's clear from the hard data – based on student test scores – that high-achieving schools come from all parts of the state, including those with high poverty and high ethnic minority populations.

These schools have one thing in common: they continually evaluate their performance by testing the students and using that data to evaluate teaching methods to determine what’s working and what’s not.

A new business community-sponsored education reform package seeks to expand these successful strategies in all schools throughout California. Last month, California Business for Education Excellence (CBEE), a group including the California Taxpayers’ Association, California Chamber of Commerce, California Business Roundtable, Boeing, State Farm Insurance, IBM, Bank of America, Intel, and many other businesses, released 11 proposals for education reform.

Titled “Closing Achievement Gaps at All Grade Levels; The Next Phase in Improving California’s Public Schools,” this comprehensive plan is a common-sense approach to advancing the successful academic standards and accountability-based education reforms strongly supported by Californians.

Goal

The CBEE reforms are geared toward the goal of closing achievement gaps by ensuring all students, regardless of race, ethnicity, or income level, are mastering necessary academic skills at every grade level. For example, at the end of third grade, a student should be proficient in third grade reading, writing, and math, as defined by California’s state standards.

Achievement gaps among ethnic minorities, socio-economically disadvantaged and English language learners – students who comprise nearly two-thirds of California’s current K-12 population – are of particular concern to the business community. These gaps must be eliminated if we are to prepare our workforce of tomorrow.

Focus on Results

Just as no successful business would operate without setting goals, measuring progress and being accountable for results, CBEE members believe all government programs should operate that way, especially our schools. The CBEE proposals were developed with input from both educators and business leaders based on what we have learned from high-performing environments and include reforms to:

• Judge students and schools on grade level proficiency, not artificial growth targets;
• Use data and test scores to identify best teaching practices;
• Develop accurate high school graduation rate reporting;
• Improve teacher and principal quality and preparation focused on improving academic achievement; institute merit pay for teachers;
• Hold the governor accountable for performance and improvement of California’s public schools;
• Make school budgets more transparent and easier-to-understand; and
• Give parents more timely options when schools fail.

Strong Public Support for CBEE Reforms and Call for Accountability

An April 2005 education poll from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) showed that 82 percent of Californians have concerns about public schools in California. They also strongly support the notion that more school accountability is needed. For example 72 percent support the requirement that students to pass a statewide test before they graduate from high school. The same amount (72%) support statewide testing before students are promoted to the next grade. Sixty-four percent support increasing teachers’ pay based on merit, as called for in CBEE’s plan. And 59 percent believe the quality of the state’s public education system can be improved by using the money now spent more wisely.

Fiscal Transparency

As detailed in the PPIC poll, taxpayers are demanding increased disclosure and transparency in the expenditure of public education funds. Simply increasing financial support for public education is not the answer to meeting the new set of challenges that face our state’s public schools. Yet the California public school system, with its confused governance structure, lacks any clear and consistent structure for financial accountability that tells the public how their money is being spent and for what achievement gains.

That is why one of the recommendations called for in the CBEE plan is that the state improve and increase the public disclosure of the costs of education and hold schools accountable for their use of taxpayer dollars in terms of efficiency and raising and maintaining student achievement. CBEE believes that ensuring that every dollar is being spent most efficiently and establishing true fiscal accountability is essential to maintaining public confidence in education.

Just for the Kids-California Website Helps Track Results

No executive can run a business without accurate data that explains what is working and what is not. Our public school systems should be no different.

In an ongoing attempt to shine a spotlight on what is working in successful schools across the state and add value to California’s efforts to improve student achievement, CBEE has helped develop Just for the Kids – California, a school improvement system (www.jftk-ca.org) that uses student performance data and best practices from every public school in the state.

JFTK-CA allows users to look up schools anywhere in the state, see how students in every grade at every school have performed annually on the California Standards Test, and compare that school to the top 10 (with comparable student populations) in their county, region and throughout the state.

The system empowers parents, educators and policy-makers with a set of analytical tools that can help them identify those schools and educators who are most successful with challenging student populations and supports those educators who want to promote the adoption of their best practices. The most successful schools with challenging student populations can become resources for struggling schools looking for answers.

CBEE urges parents, teachers, principals, business leaders, community leaders and anyone who wants to know more about school progress to go to www.jftk-ca.org, look up local schools, and get involved.

We believe that if policy-makers focus on developing a public school system that teaches all children to be proficient in reading and math and prepared for college and the workplace, and they implement public policies that encourage growth and innovation, the future success of our state’s economy will be assured.

For more details, visit www.cbee.org.