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From the Desk of Bill Cirone...
August 20, 1999
Heed Our Call: Master Plan Absolutely Essential
The 23 school superintendents in Santa Barbara County made an important statement recently that deserves public attention: we strongly support the development of a coordinated, cohesive Master Plan for education in California and we further call for a moratorium on all major education legislation until the master plan is in place.
This action is critical for the students and communities we serve. While we strongly support efforts at meaningful reform based on high standards and valid accountability, the current system of piecemeal and conflicting proposals has proven counterproductive to these efforts.
In last year's legislative session alone there were 650 individual bills introduced that affected education, and some 180 of those were enacted into law. Several worked at cross-purposes. Even worse, virtually every piece of legislation further eroded local control. As the state has assumed more control over school funding, it has also limited the ability of districts to decide what is in the best interests of local students. As we move toward standards-based accountability, local control becomes even more essential; otherwise, the state will hold districts accountable for actions over which local educators little or no control.
Despite good intentions, it's clear that the state currently lacks focus and direction in terms of education funding and policy issues.
We must devise a better plan for implementing reform or else taxpayer money will be spent on programs that do not necessarily lead to improved education. The overriding goal of a master plan is to improve education, thoughtfully and systematically. A cohesive master plan would provide a lens through which all proposals could be examined and evaluated.
For this reason, it is absolutely critical that the master plan be research-based, and crafted with knowledge of how children learn and how school districts operate. The current assault of competing and conflicting measures results in chaos and a continuing erosion of local control. We believe that a master plan must be a systems approach, based on the foundation of local control, embracing ideas that are based on research. Otherwise it will not be productive and efforts to create it will have been wasted.
Many knowledgeable professionals share these beliefs. Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, for example, has stated that California's role in K-12 education has expanded significantly over the past 25 years, through incremental changes in the system resulting from court rulings, voter initiatives, and state actions that have all seriously eroded the long-term policy of local control. She says it has become difficult to distinguish which programs and policies constitute a legitimate state function from those that should be locally controlled. For this reason, it is essential that the master plan clearly define the roles of all the professional participants in the educational process in this state: the legislature, governor, superintendent of public instruction, state board of education, state boards and commissions, county superintendents, district superintendents, district school board members and school site administrators.
We believe that a system of accountability and meaningful reform would be based on clear state standards, appropriate testing system for measuring those standards, and then adequate funding to local school districts that allow them the flexibility to determine the best path for reaching the standards, based on their community and their student population.
As our statement asserts: "Our decisions are based on what is in the best interest of ALL our students, and our policies are geared to be fair, to be consistent, and to result in the most effective and efficient functioning of our districts. We are committed to providing the highest quality education possible to all the students in our charge, regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, gender, socioeconomic status, physical or mental ability.
"Given the challenging circumstances surrounding modern public education in the state of California, including explosive growth, increasing diversity, erratic reform proposals and uncertain funding, we strongly support the development of a cohesive, coordinated master plan for public education, based on expertise in how children learn, as a filter through which reform efforts can be evaluated."
We feel strongly it is imperative that a moratorium be called on further educational legislation until such a cohesive, rational plan is in place that establishes essential parameters and preserves local control.
© Santa Barbara County Education Office
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