Shaping the Future: Challenges and Innovations in California's Education System

Gloria Romero is former majority leader of the California State Senate and chair of the Senate Education Committee , and Mike Christensen is the retired superintendent of the Orange Unified School District , and today we're going to talk about the wonderful state of education in California . It's just , things couldn't be better . Joel , you want to start off with ?

You want to start off with the first question .

In my opinion , this is all just my opinion , but taking responsibility away from students and families and putting it on teachers and educators and saying it's the teachers fault teachers need to do more .

Teachers have it's their fault if things don't progress with education as opposed to you know they have an obligation and a responsibility to present material in an understandable way to help guide students and guide families . But students need to learn , they have to be engaged .

It's like physical fitness you can sit somewhere and watch somebody running a track meet or working out , but you're not going to gather that through osmosis . You actually have to use your brain and engage and learn and that I think there's been this push of the teachers are at fault . The teachers are at fault , as opposed to .

It's a partnership and our students have to engage and they have to do work in order to be able to learn and be successful . I think it's just been a transition that's happening in California created back in 2001 the high school exit exam .

You know , joel Marshall , I we've talked about that some and included that in some write ups , but we've gone away from that right that that accountability model . I might understand the reasons why , but there needs to be some level in my opinion , some level of accountability so there's a measurement going forward .

If we can't create that sense of accomplishment for students and encourage them to learn , not just for the sake of learning , but to be able to demonstrate that they are being successful and as opposed to being concerned about who are alienating or who's not being successful and trying to deal with that and address that , has created this need for competition within

education , and that competition comes from various political places . Solutions to some of those , such as the . We have now the charter school movement , which is pretty strong . We've got conversion charters .

I had two middle schools that were converted from just your regular public schools to a charter public school , so they were basically self managed and continue to be self managed and that was in the late 90s and early 2000s and that was kind of an answer to the voucher political drive that was coming up .

So we're giving families , teachers , education groups and alternative and I think my my colleague , if I can be so bold as to call her that in glory . Romero will address some of that in her work with charter schools as an alternative , but again , still a public school answer to a problem .

And but I just think we've we've moved away from that , really engaging families and students and making it their responsibility also to partner and learn .

Without a good , solid education , we're not going to find , basically , homeownership , we're not going to find the investment in communities , will find increased crime rates .

At the same time that I oversaw the education committee , I also oversaw the prison committee and I tell people I've been virtually every prison in California for nothing that I've done , of course , but it was not lost on me that that 70% of inmates did not have a high school diploma .

Now , I believe in personal responsibility and I do concur with Mike that , yes , family student responsibility is a utmost important . But let's take a look at what happened . I mean , we talk about the public education system , but what ?

What I've seen is more it's more geared and structured and politicized to be a public works system and the education of children be damned , the participation of parents be ridiculed and mocked . My mother had a sixth grade level of education . I have a PhD .

My mother was involved and I've seen in my work with parents and the writing of the parent empowerment act of 2010 , which , by the way , california school boards , california districts , of course , the teachers unions , all the alphabet soup of special interest in California lined up to vehemently oppose this piece of legislation which basically gives parents choice .

So I'll start from there . Basically , I'm doing a podcast . Yes , we are .

You know , mike , your argument is that there's been a culture shift that's put out , put this burden on the shoulders of the teachers to have to , you know , keep the kids engaged and kind of put on a show every day . And your argument , gloria , is that the teachers unions have been kind of resistant in adapting to the needs of what the community is .

What is the what ? What is happening with the teachers ? What kind of a force are they for change or not change ?

You know , in Orange one of the things that makes that district , or has made that district , successful in the past was the teachers who taught there , lived there . Their kids went to school there . It was very neighbor oriented , family oriented , and they tried .

The majority of them certainly not all , but the majority of them worked very hard to help educate our students . But it has been politicized , which I do agree with Gloria I think she phrases it differently than I do but that this political involvement , this on high demand that's coming from Sacramento to create a high school exit exam .

Stop a high school exit exam , trying to do all these political maneuverings instead of focusing on what the basics and what kids need to know . You know when somebody gets a high school diploma , it should mean something . A college diploma should mean something , it shouldn't just be . You know you're being paroled now .

You've been in high school this many years and now you're on your way out . So we're gonna have a big ceremony , but kids can't read or write effectively , don't know mathematics . I think that's the . So my sense is we need to separate . Just like some charter schools are excellent , some charter schools are probably not so much .

So I think to put all into a basket is misleading , and I think that is part of our problem with this the left and the right not being able to come together in the middle , and we need to acknowledge what works everywhere and then also acknowledge what doesn't work , and that's my take on the whole . You know , all teachers are bad . I just don't .

I don't think Lori is saying that because she's gonna hire teachers right To teach those kids .

We know that in looking at who controls the budget in Sacramento very powerful special forces , the number one political power in California . It's not pharmaceutical companies , it's not , you know , big oil , big tobacco . It really is teachers , unions , bottom line , and you can go through and look at the Secretary of State for all the contributions , et cetera .

So this is the most powerful political force in California , and their number one job and affiliated with , you know , randy Weingarten at the national level is basically to do what is best for their members . End of story .

That's really what they do , and what that means , then , is basically to basically deny that the most important variable in the classroom is really teachers , and we've seen that in study after study . But what happens , though , in California is this crazy system whereby , if a teacher shows up and just breathes for 15 months , you have tenure for life .

Now for purposeful disclosure . I have tenure . I was a professor at Cal State , la . I've got you know , I earned tenure . But even if you think about it , in higher education , tenure is typically achieved after seven years and it's rigorous .

I mean all kinds of issues , teaching , community service , research grants , but a strong emphasis on teaching In the K through 12 , basically , you breathe for 15 months and you've got a job for life . What I tried to do , and what a number of people did , was actually to say , okay , let's reward good teaching . You shouldn't have a job for life .

In fact you shouldn't even have a job just for showing up and breathing . Let's look at accountability . If we want accountability , let's start with the most important variable . It is the teacher , it is the workforce . And I believe , when you look at the rank and file because I do agree with Mike the rank and file is different from the leadership .

But until you throw out that leadership , you're going to keep getting the same old , same old . So I do support the move towards . I do believe in testing , I do believe in standardized testing . It's not teaching to the test , it's a barometer of how we're doing . And because California has so failed , there have been efforts to try to get rid of the test .

It's like walking into Weight Watchers which I have done and to say I'm not going to step on the scale because I don't want to know the outcome . We can't do that . We have to have the courage to look at the dashboard and make it clear and concise .

And the best way to do that is to really take a look and link accountability to provide for some type of merit pay , to provide for some time of outcome associated with the quality of teaching and the outcome of students . There's a way to do that . There's percentages and contracts .

We do that in the private arena you don't just get a job for life because you show up but we do that in public education , especially in California , because we don't have school choice , we don't have a portfolio and our leaders in Sacramento and I have witnessed it personally just kowtow and bow down and hide in fear to the power of the teachers union , which

has the ability to snuff out political lies . That's what it's about .

Is that getting killed by the teachers unions ? Is that progressing ? Where are we in creating a viable alternative system to the current one ?

Parents really got a first glimpse by sitting on Zoom to basically see what was happening or not happening in their kids classrooms .

So there's a whole portfolio of choices and I agree with Mike , there are some really good charter schools and there's some pretty pathetic ones and they should be held accountable and they should be shut down when they are not performing , because outcomes matter and outcomes are the kids .

But overall , in terms of the structure in California and across the country , charter schools are outperforming because you can have greater creativity over curriculum and guess what you can fire a teacher if they are not performing . Golly gee , what a concept . But I also think too , you know , I do believe that charter schools are not the only answer .

I am , and I happen to be a Democrat , but I am one of those Democrats that believes in opportunity , scholarships , you can call them vouchers , whatever you wanna call them .

I believe in the right of parents to do what is best for their child , not the government , not the union , not the politicians , it's the parents , right , and if the Catholic school down the street is the best choice , then go there Interestingly , and then I'll stop .

If you think about it , the only area in education where we prevent and we make a big thing about oh , it's privatizing education is K through 12 , where the teachers unions are . We don't cry about grants and private scholarships , going in preschool or higher education . Take a look at Chapman . What is your federal funding ?

And nobody's saying , oh my God , it's privatization of education . We only fight about this because the teachers unions try to prevent it . If there's more money for them , there's more members , they grow . They're the only ones who benefit from prohibiting opportunity . Scholarships , vouchers , whatever you wanna call it . I want the whole gamut .

I believe in competition and when you fight for the rights of kids and parents , see it , you'll thrive .

But if you're running a public school or public school district traditional public school district , because charter schools are public schools , but traditional public school district we have kids that are in the hospital , we have to educate them . We have kids with disabilities , we have to educate them .

We are required by law to provide services for them and while charter schools in general don't have the ability to provide that education , we do a better job of it . Okay , that's fine , but so when you're comparing apples and oranges and testing , it just needs to come up with a way .

We need to come up with a way where testing is fair and equitable across different groups . So instead of just having an exit exam , there need to be different levels of testing . Because I do agree , accountability is super important and we have to have parents the gift of parents , the ability to choose . We have that in Orange , Unified within the district .

They could go to any school they want in the district and we have many parents who choose to take their kids to a different school than where they live . But that's halfway there . There are now more charter schools in California than there have been in the past .

They're growing , still growing more in Orange Unified , and I think the only way they grow is because there's demand . So for people to say that this is being made out of whole cloth by people like Gloria who are out praising this , no , parents are buying into it and they're supporting it , and that's part of parent engagement that I was referring to earlier .

We don't engage our parents , we don't make it their responsibility with their kids to learn , and I think that's a big problem with this , and it's a CTA , it's a teacher-junior thing about . It's all us , it's all us , it's all the teacher . It's that combination and that's what we need , and I think that's what Gloria is espousing in her position .

But what I find as a teacher myself , as a professor , is that the people coming in they don't have the , the excellence is missing . The base level stuff is there sometimes and it's ebbing . Frankly , a number of people that can't count is just is insane to me , and I'm being a little bit overdramatic .

But isn't it the responsibility of K through 12 to be able to accommodate or encourage people to excel , not just hit a minimum ?

You know so they're . They should be doing better . A lot of them come from you know what are seen as very good suburban school districts , and yet their knowledge level is unbelievably low , particularly history . I mean , I find myself in a bizarre situation .

My kids know so little history , even though let's say Christianity , that I have to explain who St Paul was . Now I'm the great grandson of the Latvian rabbi and I'm explaining who St Paul is to Gentile kids . I put up a picture of Lenin in the classroom . 32 kids two of them recognized who Lenin was .

One of the most famous visages tried to ask them about the Soviet Union . That never talked about it at all , and so I think one of the biggest issues I see is that kids are going through school even relatively bright , well-adjusted kids with no knowledge , and so they come to college . Then they get the activist scholars on top of them .

They have no knowledge . I mean , we've seen this , for instance , in the current situation with Israel . You know , not that there isn't room for debate , but you know people think that things that are just absurd .

And then I've had other students and I'll stop with this who said that they went to high school , they were being told that their kids , the kids , were told that all white people were racist . This was , and of course , the two kids who most objected to it were kids of mixed parents who said well , my dad's not a racist , you know .

But I mean , what's going on in the schools where not only do they know nothing , but now they're also being indoctrinated with no ability to respond ? Has that become more of a concern , and is there anything we can do about it ?

Every year I would see the interplay between the federal government , state , local , etc . And especially during the time that I was there , there were strong federal laws on the books , whatever one can say about no child left behind . Remember that was bipartisan , that was George W Bush and the lion of the Senate , ted Kennedy .

So no liberal or progressive can start complaining about no child left behind .

But to me , the power of that and there were flaws , absolutely , but the power of that was demanding accountability and to say if the school district itself , which receives millions of dollars from federal and state entities , is not performing , then there were a myriad of options , from replacing the superintendent or restructuring or shutting it down .

But you know what would happen ? Nothing , nothing ever happened in all during that time . And we would see numbers and even though , yeah , it was one number , it's imperfect , but still it's a signpost that says you know what ?

Houston , we have a problem and up and down the state of California we had problems because kids were not reading even at grade level , forget even achieving excellence .

So that's why , when , when I wrote the parent empowerment act and we did the race to the top a lot of flaws with that I remember that was Obama sponsored , governor Schwarzenegger participated in that we had a package that we put forward to try to get some . So , basically , to go back to your question , joel , there's so much that we can do .

It's not like it's a lost cause . But what is difficult to overcome is basically the political blocks that are there . And you find the unwillingness of California school boards , association , the districts .

You find you know all the democratic politicians in Sacramento who will not get their pay , their campaign contribution , to run for the next office or run for reelection because they don't like this . Literally , when I was running the parent empowerment act of 2010 , I would go knock on doors of Democrats , fellow Democrats .

First question they'd ask was where's CTA on this ? That would be the first question that they would ask and largely it was a matter of fear . So I think that this challenge has to come from the outside . It has to really be and I think what's powerful is the parent rights movement that is pushing this to new heights .

And I think , with looking at teachers overall , I think the most important thing it's not you know , it's not you know , it's not like rocket science , but we know that if kids are not reading and typically by age nine then each year that goes by it becomes more lost .

And that is something we can achieve , we need to achieve , and Mike is absolutely right , we have challenges in the system . We've got homeless youth , foster youth , english language learners , poverty kids , et cetera , but nowhere in our constitution and in public education does it say send us only the brightest kids .

If we're in public education , then we take who we get and there are ways to treat and educate children . I was a poor kid . I would have been defined as English language learner had there been that in my day . You know my mother had a sixth grade level of education .

I would have been written off and if you take a look at what I got in high school , for the most part I did get written off . But it's no excuse to not have high expectations and to teach children to read , and when we do that , in like first , second , third grade , we're on the path to moving forward .

That's really where it begins , and the rest is cleanup in aisle nine . That we've been doing year after year .

Are we looking at the potential of accreditation for online courses for K-12 ?

And while everybody ran to online education during COVID , it's backed away and want to get control and want to keep kids in classrooms and be able to keep . You know you lose the money follows the child right . You get paid based on the student that shows up at school .

So when students go leave a district because they're going to homeschool or because they're going to charter school or they're going to a parochial school , then district is not receiving that funding . So that's going to be . You know , every 30 kids equates a teacher roughly .

So there is a whole political component to that to getting beyond that and this getting to the charter school point back and you know , back when Gloria was there , it was a struggle , it was a long slog in order to get to this kind of solution , this compromise , if I can go back to just one thing about in terms of teaching and excellence , there has been a

mandate . If you will and I'm not , I don't know if that's fair to say , but that's my perception that it's . There's this mandate to kind of teach to the bottom . In other words , we do differential teaching . It should be throughout , right .

If a student's a gate student , that person should be able to get challenged and engaged and as far as they can possibly go , and if somebody needs special assistance , they're dyslexic , whatever it is that we provide them that assistance . But there's been this , this , this lowering of the bar to where it includes everybody .

So it's it's like my little kid's soccer team Everybody gets a trophy right at the end of the year , everybody successful , everybody wins . And that is not reality and I think we're doing a disservice to everybody . So to Gloria's point absolutely , you know , in the first three years you're learning to read , after that you're reading to learn .

If we don't have some kind of basic assessments at that level so that we are acknowledging what teachers are doing , what need to be done , what works , because the other thing we see in California is curriculum changes , strategies change .

Oh , we're going to have new math , and then they talk about that and they implement it for 6 million kids all overnight as a program , as opposed to well , try it here or try it there . It's . It is a little bit crazy in the way that we change curriculum .

But yeah , accountability at that level especially for reading basic mathematics at very low levels , where you can do something about it and provide those supports to help those kids come along is so important and it doesn't exist .

So you know , and obviously if they don't read it doesn't help . So can we turn this around ? I mean , california is a rich state . We spend a lot of money per student . How do you each think would be the right steps to sort of turn this around ?

We have a one party state it happens to be my party and I don't recognize my party anymore but it's still beholden to the special interests that make it a public works program rather than a public education program .

So where I would begin is really to flip it and you can call it a walk away movement , you can call it school choice , whatever , but I do believe in amplifying opportunities for school choice . Charter schools , homeschooling , the micro schools , whatever . Online can be successful as well . I prefer in class but looking at a portfolio , because kids learn differently .

So I support that . I think truly parent rights as well for the parents to be involved . I , along with former ambassador Rick Grinnell , we supported looking at opportunity scholarships for California that didn't make the ballot , you know again to decided when COVID hit , pulled it . Let's wait on that .

But , similar to what other states are doing , I do believe that we need something like a , an opportunity scholarship that would enable truly school choice for children to go forward . But at the local level , I do think and I oftentimes suggest to people don't even bother anymore , giving your money , your campaign contributions , to statewide officials .

You're going to get the same thing , you know again too . It's like insanity Keep doing the same thing , expecting something different , and we're still getting , quite frankly , crappy scores on education . So I've suggested really focus at the local level . Look at your local school boards .

Right now in the city of Orange they're in the Orange Unified School District there is an attempt to recall two members of a reform coalition that came about status quo , the empire striking back , trying to take them out .

But we've seen the effort and the choice of parents , and so I believe you know to to vote and I don't believe in trying to recall them at this time for reasons that I believe the voters spoke to say we want to turn these around .

Orange overall has a great reputation , but what I've seen throughout California is you have the gaps , and those gaps are really race based . You have strong achievement gaps when it comes to , especially poverty , english learners , african American , latino children , and those gaps have got to be closed , otherwise , you know , we're just not going to advance as a state .

So I would say focus in terms of what we see and if we can start turning around at the local level with local boards , I think eventually we get other changes . But the more and more that parents leave , the message is being sent to school districts and to Sacramento . This is a product that needs to be changed . It's just not working and it's .

It's not meant with disrespect , it's meant with it's real and we can't afford to wait years and years and years to transform kids' lives . We've got 12 years in an education system and how much of it is wasted already .

But then you need to push that authority down to the locals . Right , let them educate . You know , an example is Newsom just signed Gavin Newsom just signed a bill about bringing cursive writing back in California and it's going to be mandated that everybody teach , all elementary schools teach , cursive writing .

Well , they've already been doing that , never stopped doing it in Oceanside . So if that's important to local districts and to parents , it'll be done . But there's this perception that we just have to do whatever the state tells us at the local level to do , as opposed to letting the locals run their own school district .

Then you get into , I think , a school choice thing where you're moving from one to another , as opposed to you know , you go from Orange to Tustin or Orange to Placencia or you know wherever it is , and it's kind of the same thing , just a different you know , a different day , a different face .

So I think that getting more local control while it's talked about it has been talked about in Sacramento it's not very real and giving that local control is huge in order to getting parents to have control , people just leaving the school system . While it will have an impact , you can see what people leaving California has done to taxes in California .

Right , Nothing's changed it , just they tax the other people that are here more . So , while I don't disagree that people should do that if that's what they think is important , I don't think that's going to affect change , short of somebody , some political leader , standing up at a high level and saying we're going to focus on this and everybody else be damned .

We have to do it for the future of our students and appreciate what the great equalizer is in our country , and that's public education .

Either just jump in as a parent and make sure that you're really involved in the what it is that's being taught and how it is that it's being taught in the existing system , or basically step away from it and say no , we're going to go create an alternative system a charter school , an online school , a home school .

It seems to me that those are relatively stark choices .

Certainly you get in the in Central Valley , you go up , you know along Highway 101 and some of those super small farming communities and the challenges that they have . But it's still important .

And if we don't get every student , you know , to come to school in kindergarten , which is also not mandatory , it's only first grade is mandatory , but you know we , some kids , don't even come to this country till fourth grade , to a fourth grade age , and so we need to acknowledge that as well and try to deal with that .

But by having community engagement , communities can respond to the needs of their families better than Sacramento can .

I think to school choice because parents are partnered . Parents , I say to , are the first teacher at home , but parents are not the teacher . If they are , then then you know , redirect all the state funds to the parent . So I think to the engagement , the change is needed from the system itself . This is about a systems analysis and a systems change .

Parents as consumers I can go to McDonald's or I can go to , you know , to Carl's Jr or some a sushi bar . I don't have to take my money to this one place . So there's choice and I do believe that with education , education should be a portfolio of choices that works for that parent .

The money , it's not extra money , it's the same tax dollar , but parents , not just with engagement but with empowerment , can take the dollar that would be allocated for that one district to say , this dollar is going to work differently for me , and that's the power of school choice .

When we offer that and I believe that California needs to We've made progress , but we're still far behind where we need to be .

Thank you for being a guest on the feudal future podcast and we look forward to having you back to discuss this in in further depth soon .