Testing the California Education Hypocrisy Index
By: Peter Schrag
The gloomy reports about California’s overstressed public schools keep piling up – two came on one another’s heels in the last week – but there may now be at least a glimmer of good news there as well: More people than ever before seem to be getting it, from the new governor on down.
Because of that getting-it, there may even be a chance for a little improvement.
The central message from last week’s reports, one from EdSource, the Palo Alto-based school data and analysis group, the other from CFTL, the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning in Santa Cruz, is that California is making ever more demands of schools and their employees and giving them ever less funding and support to do it.
That’s not news, except for the fact that it’s been getting progressively worse, by billions of dollars, and will get worse again next year. Even Jerry Brown had some of those ugly numbers in his summit earlier this month.