EDUCATION

By Dan McCrory

Education is an investment in our future, a right, not a luxury.

But on election day Prop. 92 was defeated. Those who fought it said the initiative would have cost the state nearly a billion dollars over the next three years and would likely have led to tax increases and/or cuts to other critical programs including health care, public safety and public education, including K-12 and state colleges and universities.

The California Teachers Association said the measure would have hurt K-12 schools. And it would have been money earmarked exclusively for community colleges, money not available for the general fund, untouchable in a fiscal emergency.

What can we do? We should first avoid cutting $4.8 billion in education funding that the Governor's budget calls for. We have already dropped from 43rd in the nation in per-pupil spending to 46th. Those proposed cuts would mean a loss of $800 per student, $24,000 per classroom.

We also need to examine the provisions of No Child Left Behind. It's time to erase the one-size-fits-all provisions of NCLB that are hurting students and labeling schools. The law needs to be rewritten and reauthorized so it truly supports teachers, schools, and students.

The shortfall in federal support since 2001 now exceeds $55 billion. It's wrong for Congress to make additional demands of our schools without providing the resources to meet those demands.

Change the law to use multiple measures to gauge student learning and school success. Currently the one-day snapshot of just two standardized test scores is an unfair, inaccurate, and misleading measure of student achievement. Under NCLB, time spent on testing and test preparation has decimated important programs like art, music, foreign languages, and physical education.

California ranks 49th in the nation in the number of teachers per student. Congress should restore and enhance the federal class size reduction program, with priority given to schools of greatest need. ESEA/NCLB should provide quality training to teachers and paraprofessionals, as well as incentives to attract and retain teachers in hard-to-staff schools.

There must also be a way to gauge + over time + how an individual student is progressing. I know when I was in school, I saw my counselor once, maybe twice in the three years I was in high school; I understand they have a heavy student load. I had a 3 to 3.5 grade point average and I was active in a lot of extracurricular activities + band, student government - but I think if there had been more oversight I would have had the support to go to college right after graduation.

We must help those who don't choose college, too, to find a career. We need to raise awareness and support those who chose to follow a vocational route, without closing doors through our own perceptions of that child's chances at higher education. As President Bush says, "Childrens is our future."