Bold Plan Would Slash Red Tape for Schools : Reform: State Supt. Eastin urges freeing districts from most of education code if they agree to toughen standards.

In a bold reform effort that bypasses the California Legislature and Gov. Pete Wilson, state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin said Thursday that she plans to use powers delegated to her under state law to free school districts from virtually every rule in the education code, in return for a commitment from the districts to meet higher standards.

At press conferences in San Francisco and Pasadena, Eastin said she intends to create, in effect, charter districts that would be funded with state block grants and operate free of much of the red tape and regulation that several state reports have said hamper innovation and improvement.

In return, the school districts would have to establish high achievement standards for every subject and grade, toughen graduation requirements, improve campus security, work more closely with parents and create individualized learning plans for each student.

Nine of the state’s 1,000 districts already are negotiating with Eastin to accept her “challenge,” she said. Eastin said she invited those districts--including Pasadena, San Diego, San Francisco and Visalia--to participate based on their track records on local reform efforts.

California’s once highly regarded school system has ranked near the bottom on national tests of math and reading in recent years and Eastin said the state has failed its students by expecting too little of them.

“My plan is straightforward: Set high standards which all students are expected to meet, hold everyone involved accountable for achieving results, provide incentives for those who succeed and progressively intervene for those who fail our children,” she said.

Eastin’s proposal goes further than efforts in other states to free local districts from state control because it requires the school systems to measure up to academic goals, said Chris Pipho, a spokesman for the Denver-based Education Commission of the States, which monitors reform efforts around the country.

“It’s a bold step and it’s a good step and it’s needed,” he said. Eastin’s plan follows the broad outlines laid out by the commission in a report on California schools issued at the request of the governor this spring.

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In addition to working directly with selected districts, Eastin said, she will propose a raft of legislation to reward any school district that improves and sanction those that do not. Other bills she plans to propose would cut class sizes and pay for upgrading computer technology in the schools.

Those reforms appear unlikely to succeed in the current economic and political climate, however. Reducing class sizes alone would have a price tag of more than $2 billion in construction costs and hundreds of millions more in staffing costs.

Eastin’s idea of “challenge” districts would not cost the state any more and would not necessarily produce any additional income for school districts.

But it would make accounting for attendance far easier. Instead of providing funds to local school districts based on how many students show up every day, the district would be paid for every student who attends school at least once during a month.

Districts would also be freed from state minimum requirements for instructional time, an idea that may be controversial given that the state currently spends $700 million a year providing districts with incentives to make sure students receive additional time in class.

School systems would also be given broad discretion to use funds now intended for specific programs, such as special education and bilingual instruction, for other purposes. And they would be freed to increase class sizes in some grades.

To meet Eastin’s goals for improvement, schools would have to reduce dropout rates and increase by 5% a year the number of students achieving at or above grade-level standards. Within 10 years, according to her timetable, 90% of all students should exceed the statewide learning standards she will develop.

Although much of what Eastin is proposing has won support elsewhere, some of her ideas are controversial.

She expects the legislative part of her strategy to have its detractors, but by agreeing to work directly with districts, she has already gotten the plan off the ground.

“It is time to give encouragement to those who are willing to go outside of channels,” Eastin said. “We’ve had enough studies . . . enough plans. . . . Now’s the time to just do it.”

Eventually, Eastin said, she would like every school district in the state to operate according to her plan, but that would require legislative action and might take years.

“There’s a number of issues that have to be sorted out,” said Vera Vignes, Pasadena’s superintendent. But, she said, “what’s wonderful about this is we’re not going to be alone anymore.”

Eastin said the districts would have to get parents and teachers to agree to the proposed contracts, much as charter schools have to get approval from those groups. And she said the state department would give districts wide latitude in how they meet the standards.

Freeing districts from onerous state regulations has won backing from Wilson and legislative leaders this year, but a bill to write a new and smaller education code stalled in the Assembly.

Other education-related legislation, including a bill that would have set statewide learning standards and created local and statewide tests to measure student performance, has also languished in Sacramento amid partisan tensions.

Eastin said that bill’s fate is an example of the political paralysis that has stalled statewide education reform efforts and of what has led her to reach out directly to school boards, teachers unions and administrators to jump-start reforms.

As word has gotten out, she said, many more educators have expressed interest in joining.

Mike Roos, who directs the Los Angeles Unified School District’s largest reform effort, LEARN, said becoming a challenge district might help the state’s biggest school system cut through the barriers that have slowed the pace of reform.

Reform has been hampered by the rigidity of the state education code and local district regulations, he said.

Some political leaders in Sacramento welcomed Eastin’s effort, even though many of the details of how it would work remain vague.

Assemblyman Steve Baldwin, the conservative Republican who is the vice chairman of the Education Committee, said many of the concepts would be embraced by his fellow party members.

“Most of these ideas are not new . . . and they’re things that most Republicans could sign off on,” he said. “Is this enough to salvage our school system from the bottom in the country? It certainly would improve it.”

But, he said, the proposal does nothing to steer California away from what he called “faddish” teaching methods that are undermining student achievement in math and reading.

Davis Campbell, executive director of the California School Boards Assn., agreed that many of Eastin’s proposals are valuable. But he said how they would be funded remains unclear and might make them more controversial. “What we are going to try to understand are the cost implications,” he said.

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Gov. Wilson’s top education adviser, Maureen DiMarco, gave the superintendent points for effort, but questioned whether state law gives Eastin the power to do much of what she proposes, including authorizing the creation of “charter” districts and establishing state standards for student achievement in all grades and all subjects.

But DiMarco was unwilling to criticize the effort. “We raise these not as criticisms but as concerns,” she said.

Eastin said she and her staff will be working with the first group of nine districts between now and January to develop the new contracts or compacts.

In the past the California Teachers’ Assn. has opposed the creation of more charter schools, which also operate independent of the state’s education code.

But Helen Bernstein, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, said she is optimistic that teachers unions will not get in the way of Eastin’s proposed restructuring.

“The difference is [Eastin is] going to allow schools that join up some real flexibility,” Bernstein said. “She recognizes and respects union rights and due process.”

Tom Seixas, who heads the teachers union in Visalia, said the compacts will succeed if school board members, administrators, parents and employee unions work together to develop them. But they will fall apart, he said, if districts try to impose their will on the teachers rather than collaborate with them.

Times education writer Amy Pyle contributed to this story.

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The School Reform Plan

In return for cutting red tape in the state’s massive education code, a school district would agree to:

* Close campuses to outsiders to protect students. Students would have to eat on campus.

* Adopt measurable content and performance standards for every subject at every grade level. Those would be developed by the state Department of Education.

* Increase mandatory graduation course requirements so that all graduates take algebra, geometry, a public service class and a career-planning class.

* Ensure that every graduate meets requirements and passes a test for the Golden State Achievement Certificate.

* Set standards for safe, clean, well-lighted, high-tech schools.

* Create a parent-school compact signed by every parent.

* Have an individual learning plan for each child. This plan would make sure that students who do not meet the grade-level standards would be given the help they need to do so.

* Give schools more decision-making authority.

* To maintain this contract with the state, districts must meet specified student performance targets annually, including dropout reduction.

Source: Office of the state superintendent of public instruction