This cartoon is by Andrew Hart*
Education policy in California too often is like a Philip K. Dick story, where memories are erased and alternate realities collide.
The extent to which Governor Schwarzenegger and Superintendent O’Connell have ignored the state’s leading education thinkers and actors in dealing with the state’s biggest education reform problem is striking and, in our opinion, constitutes educational malpractice.
) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )
"California now has more than 1,000 persistently failing schools forced to undergo drastic restructuring, the [Center for Education Policy] study found. That’s more than any other state, yet few are being helped by the mandated process.
"The study found that local efforts to comply with the law and turn schools around are often poorly focused and tend to lack a key ingredient: qualified teachers."
San Francisco Chronicle, September 23, 2008 (link)
"Quantitative analyses indicate that measures of teacher preparation and certification are by far the strongest correlates of student achievement in reading and mathematics, both before and after controlling for student poverty and language status".
Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University, Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence, December, 1999 (link)
"In California, for example, the proportion of unqualified teaching faculty is 6.75 times higher in high-minority schools (greater than 90% minority enrollment) than in low-minority schools (less than 30% minority enrollment). Nationally, in schools with the highest minority enrollments, students have been found to have less than a 50 percent chance of getting a mathematics or science teacher with a license and a degree in the field that they teach."
Chris Edley, Dean, Boalt Hall School of Law, UC Berkeley, Testimony Before the U.S. House of Representatives, July 24, 2002 (link)
"States such as California have… labeled thousands of current teachers who are merely participating in ‘alternative route[s] to certification’ as ‘highly qualified.’ In California, these teachers—still on the road to full state certification—are most commonly in university or district-based intern programs and are known generically as intern teachers. Intern teachers in California are disproportionately assigned to teach in low-performing schools serving high numbers of low-income and minority students.
Public Advoactes, San Francisco CA, on behalf California students and others, v. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, August 2007 (link)
"Strapped for experienced teachers, California is skirting the nation’s new education law by insisting that 50,000 rookies without full credentials are nonetheless ‘highly qualified’.
“You can’t define your way out of the problem,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), an architect of the federal law who has called on California to reconsider its policy. “This is about letting parents know who is standing in front of their children six hours a day and what their qualifications are.”
Los Angeles Times, August 6, 2002 (link)
"We found that high-poverty and high-minority schools spend tens of thousands of dollars less on teacher salaries than low-poverty and low-minority schools of similar size and in the same school districts every year. In many cases, the difference is hundreds of thousands of dollars….
"[O]f the 50 largest California school districts, 42 spend less on teachers in schools serving mostly low-income students than in schools serving the fewest numbers of poor students: on average, an estimated $2,576 less per teacher. For the average high-poverty elementary school with 34 teachers, that amounts to $87,584 less in teacher salaries every year."
The Education Trust West, California’s Hidden Teacher Spending Gap: How State and District Budgeting Practices Shortchange Poor and Minority Students and Their Schools, March 2005 (link)
"One of the most powerful factors in students’ academic success is their access to well-prepared teachers. Teacher quality including teacher certification status, degree in field, and participation in high-quality professional development all have a significant impact on student outcomes. Improving the quality of teaching in the classroom has the greatest impact on students who are most educationally at risk, and, in some instances, the effects of well-prepared teachers on student achievement are stronger than the influences of student background factors, such as poverty, language background, and minority status."
Jeannie Oakes, UCLA, Critical Conditions for Equity and Diversity in College Access: Informing Policy and Monitoring Results, 2003 (
link)
"A recent update of research commissioned by the Center and conducted by SRI International found that, on average, [California] schools with the lowest passing rates on the [high school] exit exam have far more underprepared and novice teachers than schools with higher pass rates. Students in schools with lower pass rates are nearly twice as likely to be taught by underprepared and novice teachers than students attending schools with the highest passing rates. More than one-third of underprepared and novice teachers were located in schools with the lowest pass rates on the mathematics portion of the CAHSEE."
Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, UC Santa Cruz, "California’s Approach to Math Instruction Still Doesn’t Add Up," July 2008 (link)
"Mr. Obama is eager to finance “an army of new teachers” that could advance equity by aiming to elevate achievement of poor children. But he must be cautious of the recent push by state governors to enact seductive yet costly universal entitlements — like reducing class size or universal preschool — which studies suggest typically fail to narrow learning gaps among children from poor and middle-class families."
Bruce Fuller, UC Berkeley, "Setting Priorities in School Spending", 10/13/2008 (link)
———————————————
*Andrew Hart is a freelance artist and co-founder of the Philadelphia Cartoonist Society. To see more of his artwork, visit his website www.andre-whart.com.This is Swift & Change Able cartoon #11 and appears exclusively at Swift & Change Able. All rights reserved to Andrew Hart.
05:51:42 am, Categories: Announcements [A] 
Comment feed for this post
