Education

By Patrick L. Marsh

To "fix" education, the solution is not to increase spending. With all interested parties acting responsibly toward a common good, we can see easy spending reductions without losing quality. The legislature need not assume full responsibility for everything. Some issues must be shared with everyone, and in doing so, we are likely to see the improvement we all want.

I prefer to look critically at education on three points:

- Do we have enough properly educated college graduates to meet demand in the job market?
- Are students at all levels provided with the skills to think critically, solve problems, and understand their society?
- Are we properly compensating those in the teaching profession?

Based on figures from the current California budget, we have about 650,000 people currently in the UC and CSU systems. In the state's Community Colleges, we have 2.6 million students, and of course there is a sizable population in the private, trade, and tech schools. Of course, I do not expect that each graduate will stay in the state, but these statistics suggest that we should not have an issue with meeting the needs of the job market for new entrants.

What is of greater importance are the questions of performance and spending. For those who have not indulged in the maze that is California's education budget process, I will spare you the trouble and simply state that it is remarkably complex, and interestingly unrelated to actual financial requirements of the system. Of course, we can attribute this to Proposition 98, which made certain guarantees to education funding. In addition, we have a large pension system in place that creates a drag on available funds.

But let's consider performance first, as it can have a direct effect on spending.

If there is one opinion on the state's educational system it is that we are failing. We certainly have significant drop out rates in some areas, and difficulty passing standardized tests in other areas. To the extent that we make the passage of certain tests, or the completion of specified coursework, a priority, we will probably face this issue forever. As schools become more institutional, the less productive the student-teacher relationship becomes, and the less likely we are to dodge the failure label.

This is why I would prefer a wholesale change to the educational system. Keeping education as a state function is a rational approach for me, as I consider education part of the responsibility a government has to its citizens (to the extent they want it). But virtually the entire structure of education is not amenable to "success" as we tend to define it. We want test scores and specific knowledge. But these are not what makes education for me. I prefer an education to simply provide the tools that an individual needs to make a positive contribution to society, in a much more organic fashion.

So let's build an educational system from the ground up and see where it leads:

1. Start with the student. The student is the focus of the education, and is the reason why the institution exists. We want our youth to gain knowledge for personal reasons as well as to develop skills to be used in society. Yet in my experience, the student's experience with the institution of education can be antagonistic as easy as it can be amenable.

For the educational system to thrive, we must begin with a student that actively seeks the knowledge of a teacher. Someone who is aware that the world offers endless exploration, and who thrills in taking that journey. How do we do this? It comes from the parents. Education may be the government's responsibility, but the burden must be met first by parents before government gets involved. If parents provide a voracious appetite for learning, then the battle is more than halfway won.

Now ask yourself- is this the attitude you see among our youth? I do not have anything to offer outside of personal observation and anecdotal evidence, but those limited resources tell me that we are lacking in this area.

2. Next find the teacher. A good teacher is hard to find, certainly, but not impossible. Several minimal characteristics must be met. The individual must love the educational process, must have a rapport with youth, must command a vast store of knowledge in the given subject matter, and must understand how to translate that knowledge into understandable pieces. But that only covers the basics. The teacher plays a very influential role in the life of a student with a large appetite for knowledge. As such, the teacher must be tasked with explaining how a given subject matter relates to society, and how people form differing opinions, and the tools we can use to form our own.

The teacher's job is not to unduly influence. The student should emerge from the learning environment capable of making his or her own decisions in areas that affect society, not have those decisions made on their behalf.

3. Create the curricula. Learning is a very personal process. Some say that there are a number of specific areas in which a student must be proficient. If left to me, I would make these minimal: the ability to read, the ability to perform intermediate mathematics with a calculator (and understand rudiments on paper), and the ability to speak and spell properly. Outside of that, I prefer my education to be a journey of exploration instead of a tour of a textbook. In such a situation, grade-levels by year become less important. More important is when a knowledgeable teacher sees and understands the growth of a young mind and can sense it progressing to greater levels of learning.

So why not permit an active student to guide his or her own education to an extent? Let the learning happen in a way that keeps the student motivated. Let the student take pride in the learning process. Perhaps the book reports will come without request, and will not be dreaded.

4. Trust the teachers and parents to know when the learner has achieved a level at which he or she is prepared for advanced education. The A-F grade system serves little purpose except to rank people and assign the traditional failure label. A school where people are getting F's is a failing school, and causes the general uproar. If the student were creating their own path, the teacher, in communication with the parent, could take a more fluid approach to assessing completion. Perhaps an intelligent child expresses himself in a way that does not suggest he understands the material. Perhaps another student doesn't understand what is presented, but gets lucky on some tests. By putting the responsibility on the teacher to assess a body of work, we may get better and more accurate results.

5. After the youth education period ends, then we provide the university system where the learning is of a greater difficulty, and a greater specificity, and the student can form a career path. Pride in accomplishment takes the student through all levels of education, and we ideally have a better trained and more motivated society.

Of course all of this is in the theoretical, and not implementable. Education is a virtually immovable institution with interests who make money, and a bureaucracy of gargantuan proportion. I explain this only to demonstrate my overall approach to education legislation. I believe that we apply too much legislation, regulation, and cost to our educational system. As governments do, they see a problem and seek to fix it with law or money. These are the tools of government, and it makes the public feel something is being done. But after years of this, are we in a different position? Hardly. I think we can safely argue that our smartest kids are coming out much smarter than ever before. But what about the rest? i leave that for you to form an opinion.

I am not going to propose legislation for anything educational. I will only vote, and will do so in the positive only when a bill seeks to reduce the regulation on education. Anything that simplifies the educational system, relieves reporting burdens, and moves responsibility to parents and teachers, I will consider for an affirmative vote.

As a result of such legislation (to the extent it may exist), we will be able to see real cost reductions. All the money in the world isn't going to make a student want to learn, nor an apathetic teacher want to teach. The closer we get to a motivated student on one end of the log and a capable teacher on the other, the sooner we will be toward reducing the incredible cost burden on the state.

Finally, I am not of a mind to reduce teacher pay. Teachers play an incredibly valuable role in society, and deserve our support to compensate them sufficiently. Pensions are a stickier issue, as the unfunded liability is closing in on a number uncountable. That said, revoking a pension on an existing retiree or someone planning their life currently, is unfair, and is something I would never support.

Unfortunately, outside of prior promises, the guarantee of a pension (particularly a defined-benefit contribution) is not in line with the rest of society. Even judging on value to society, there are many non-teachers we would consider "deserving" of a pension, including some who have no education whatsoever. As such, I am definitely open to the idea of removing the pension element from teacher compensation, possibly offset somewhat by an increase in salary.

My ultimate goal in Sacramento is to see how we can make do with the current revenue. I would give teachers anything they wanted in a perfect world. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we enforce limits on what we can do monetarily, and put up barriers to just about everything in society. Given the limitations in place, our teachers should come to the table freely accepting these limitations for which they most likely voted as well, and accept the fact that with a limit on resources, there will by definition not be enough to go around for everything we want.

If you are still with me at this point, the main takeaways are that education has serious room for reform, I will not actively institute reforms mentioned above as they would be impossible, and that while future pensions are on the table for revocation, current pensions are not. Promises in this area must be upheld. Care for the individual is paramount for a government, and paying a salary and ensuring the aged are covered is how that is effected.