Some of the basic tenets of our country's approach to education are under challenge in an interesting case winding up this week in a Los Angeles courtroom.
The plaintiffs are nine minority children enrolled in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). They are backed by a billionaire from Silicon Valley.
The defendants are the State of California and the two California teachers unions, the California Federation of Teachers and the California Teachers Association. The unions are wealthy too.
At issue is whether five state laws regarding teacher employment have the result of consigning poor and minority students to classrooms staffed by ineffective teachers, violating the students' rights of equal protection under the California constitution. (I discussed this more generally several days ago in The Dance of the Lemons.)
The judge in the case will issue his decision soon, but it certainly will not end the matter. Each side has vowed to appeal if the ruling is not in its favor.
The case is important, and I believe it has not received the attention it deserves. There is broad dissatisfaction with the results our public school districts are achieving compared with other countries' education systems. We need a broad discussion of what should be done.
At local, state and national levels, we have been working on improving schools for many years.
The first big effort was to devote more money to education. Some people believe still more money is the answer. To date, very substantial increases in educational funding have yet to yield even marginally better results.
The other approach has been to change standards for student achievement. The current federal effort is called the "common core" curriculum. The last one was "no child left behind." In between we had a "race to the top." Other revisions have been attempted, often several times, in virtually every state. Some years back, a friend said of the latest such program, "It's just another way to measure 70 percent." He got it right.
I think of this every time some new top-down grand plan is adopted and we are supposed to expect better results. It never seems to make a difference. People want everything to be different but nothing substantive to change. Our children are the poorer for it.
Education essentially is a personal transaction involving a teacher and students. It requires respect, even love, between the two, as well as trust and agreement on the goals to be achieved. This may sound trite, but it is not achieved easily.
Outside factors inevitably influence the educational transaction -- the support of parents for the schools, the mutual respect of school administrators and teachers and, most of all, the trust of each group that the others have the success of students as their single, over-riding goal.
It is this last element where school effectiveness breaks down. I find it curious that it is seldom discussed in these terms.
Students are the plaintiffs in Vergara v. California, but the case is essentially a battle among the adults.
Next up: three discussions of the major claims of the Vergara plaintiffs, the responses of their opponents and some context on the issues.
I agree with your succinct analysis of the problem. Little ones begin learning with their first breath. By the time these children reach the formal classroom their education is well underway and their sense of self is internalized. The most professional teachers and administrators are challenged. The job often becomes a matter of un-building before the building can commence. That skill is not taught in teacher training programs.
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