Schools in decline

Press, 2 September 1983, Page 13

Schools in decline

From

John Hutchison

in California

California’s school system, once regarded as leading the nation in quality, innovation, and physical facilities, is deteriorating at a rate so alarming that it has become a major political issue. The schools are widely condemned for turning out too many ill-trained, undisciplined, poorly motivated young people. Meanwhile, a public once generous in its support of school improvement has developed a stingy attitude toward education which only recently has shown signs of relaxing. Critics'see two major causes of the decline. Much of the blame has been laid on a generation of educators — most of them products of the same system -- seen as permissive and encouraging students in teacher training institutions in the 1950 s and 1960 s to allow pupils and college students to "do their thing.” According to those who demand that the schools “get back to basics,” the period produced lax discipline, little homework, easy courses, excessive attention to “frills” and extracurricular activities, and a general relaxation of standards. There is some evidence that upper form and university students themselves have reacted against the indulgent trend; throughout the United States they are reported to be increasingly more concerned with relating learning to earning. The downhill slide of California education was accelerated by a taxpayer revolt in 1978 against ballooning property taxes. Adopting “Proposition 13,” the revolt slashed rates 50 per cent. A principal result was a drastic cut in school funds, when inflation was rapidly increasing costs. The ratepayers clamped a strong grip on public spending which has required school districts to dis-

charge teachers, drop subjects, close some schools, and crowd their children into other schools. Some school textbooks are so out-of-date that they refer to American plans to some day send a man to the Moon. At least two school districts in California are bankrupt. One, very small, went broke because of glaring mismanagement. It is selling one of its two elementary schools to pay off a loan it needed to pay pressing bills. The other district is large — the city of San Jose, with 51 schools and 31,000 pupils. Last spring it laid off 454 employees and closed nine schools. It reneged on SUS 3 million ($4.6M) in salary rises for teachers.

Despite a court order, the district says it cannot meet the agreement, and will fall short by another SUS 9 million of its needs for the next school year, which starts in September. Hundreds of other school districts face acute problems. Teachers, insecure in their jobs and denied pay increases to keep pace with living costs, are discouraged. Spending on education in California has risen from SUSBOOO million in 1977 to SUSI3,OOO — not enough to keep up with inflation. Spending is now well below the nation’s per capita average. The state’s economy-minded Republican governor, Mr George Deukmejian, quarrelling with the Democratic majority in the legislature, has grudgingly approved an increase in the budget for schools, but the amount will meet only some of their most critical needs.

He has also signed a law which will, in time, bring about sweeping reforms in schools’ standards. It will lengthen the school year, impose tougher requirements for graduation, permit fewer elective subjects and tighten the discipline on troublesome and lazy pupils. It will set higher standards for teachers and improve their pay. It will modernise curricula and textbooks and reward and assist schools that improve their instruction.

Although Mr Deukmejian insists that he was elected because of his pledge not to raise taxes, it is apparent that the public want better schools and is willing to pay for them. A survey by a respected polling organisation recently found that Californians are seriously upset by the education crisis, and two of every three citizens interviewed were willing to pay more taxes to bring the schools up to the national average of excellence. One expert estimates that it would cost an additional SUS27SO million annually to do so. That kind of money is widely beyond the

bounds of Mr Deukmejian’s notion of frugal government. The schools are only part of the state’s education problem. The principal target for the blue pencil with which the governor slashed the education budget submitted by the legislature was the state’s huge complex of post-secondary institutions.

They, too, have been compelled for a decade to retrench, with salaries failing to keep up with national trends, buildings falling into disrepair, the pinching back of library and laboratory facilities and the reduction of academic programmes. Meanwhile, graduates of California’s state-financed teacher-training departments are peforming poorly on required tests in reading, writing and mathematics.

The prestigious University of California, with nine campuses and almost 140,000 students, is severely short of funds and unable, according to its regents, to maintain the quality of staff and facilities that have made it one of the greatest educational institutions in the world. The California state universities

— a separate system with 19 campuses and almost 250,000 students — are having to curtail courses and forgo staff salary increases commensurate with the rise in the cost of living. The state-wide network of 106 community colleges, which has well over a million full and parttime students, turned away applicants this year because of lack of funds and will close its doors, it is predicted, to about 100,000 students wanting to enter the new term about to begin. The community colleges provide low-cost education to students who can live at home, night classes for those who work, and adult education in a wide range of academic and vocational subjects. The student can take two years of work applicable to a degree when he or she transfers to a university. The erosion of higher education in California is accompanied by a continuing trend to making students pay for services which once were free. Undergraduates at the University of California will see last year’s fees of SUS3OO jump to SUS4SO. At the state universities, fees which were SUS44I a year ago will zoom to SUS6B7. At community colleges, where there have been no fees, students will be charged $lOO this year. Out-of-state students, foreign students and graduate students must pay considerably more.

Administators, teachers, and students and their families are expressing outrage. The governor’s Democratic opponents are calling him callous and hypocritical. The legislature, recessed briefly for a holiday, will soon reconvene in an atmosphere charged with hostility over many partisan issues, with education high in the list of conflicts and likely to stay there.