Educated Guess, a new education blog by San Jose Mercury News editorial writer John Fensterwald, has debuted with a link to the Students First report by California’s Committee on Education Excellence, which has been “floating around Sacramento, getting into the hands of a few anointed ones” but hasn’t been released publicly till now. Key recommendations (with the Merc’s comments) include:
• Create a more collaborative, constructive way of evaluating teachers (other than drive-by observations by overworked principals).
• Link teacher pay to performance, including several factors: teachers’ leadership and school responsibilities, student academic achievement and evaluations. This would be much more comprehensive than bonuses based merely on API scores, which the teachers union legitimately opposes.
• Pay a premium to successful teachers willing to teach in struggling schools.
• End the state universities’ monopoly over teacher and administrator training programs, which have been generally criticized for inadequately preparing beginning teachers; let school districts, county offices of education, unions and charter organizations have a crack at certifying new teachers. Expect stiff resistance from the University of California and California State University systems.
• Provide mentors for new principals and administrators, comparable to the program that the state now provides for beginning teachers. New principals now face a trial by fire. We’d like to see an even more involved intern program, whereby aspiring principals for low-income districts get paid six-month internships.
The report also suggests changes in governance, including turning the elected state superintendent into an “accountability czar” in charge of inspecting schools; the governor’s appointed education secretary would run the education department.
In the funding section:
• Give districts more control over spending by ending many of the designated funds, known as categorical programs, that dictate how dollars are spent.
• Add 40 percent to the base level per capita funding for low-income students and 25 percent more for English learners.
The report also calls for increasing funding for high-quality preschools for low-income children and full-day kindergarten programs.
The cost of additional funding for low-income students and English learners would be $5 billion. Expanding preschool assistance and full-day kindergarten would cost an additional $1.1 billion — money well spent.
The summary report doesn’t say how much all the recommendations would cost, if approved.
John was a colleague of mine at the Merc and took over the education opinion beat from me when I left to write Our School. I’ve added Educated Guess to my blogroll.
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