Common Core consequences: “What currently passes for reform’ has caused considerable collateral damage to schools and teachers” - Salon.com

Common Core consequences: “What currently passes for reform’ has caused considerable collateral damage to schools and teachers” - Salon.com:

Common Core consequences: “What currently passes for reform’ has caused considerable collateral damage to schools and teachers”

California flipped education-reform script, knowing sanctions/test-driven accountability helps no one. Here's how

 Politicians from across the political spectrum have made public schools and schoolteachers the favored whipping post of the day.

In blue state New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has vowed to “bust up” public education “monopolies” and has bullied through new laws that unfairly evaluate teachers based onwildly unreliable measures. These actions recently drove thousands of New Yorkers into the streets to protest the new mandates.

In red state Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback has made massive budget cuts to that state’s public schools, spurring parents and school children to openly protest his plan. Another conservative leader, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, has taken a meat cleaver to higher education budgets, igniting a strong backlash from voters.

In virtually every state, there’s a massive resistance to standardized testing that now dominates education practices. And rollouts of new Common Core standards continue tospark strong anger from teachers and parents of all political persuasions.

However, at least one state seems to have missed the war on public schools.

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Instead of taking massive budget cuts to public schools, California is flowing more money into schools and has taken steps to ensure school funding is more equitable. Instead of tormenting teachers with shoddy evaluations, many California school principals areresisting the policy of using standardized test scores to judge teacher performance. And the state recently refused to include a teacher evaluation system based on student test scores in its application for a waiver from the mandates of No Child Left Behind laws.

Although the state is implementing the Common Core, the adoption has proceeded relatively problem-free. Recently two education experts that don’t always agree – Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond and Paul Hill of the Center on Reinventing Public Education – took to the pages of The Hill to declare the Golden State had reached a satisfactory “consensus” to “education accountability.”

What’s going on in America’s “Left Bank?” Could it be that California is solving the raucous education debate? Has the state found an alternative to the “reform” path that has created so much discontent elsewhere?

To answer that question, Salon tracked down an expert on California education policy, former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig.

Honig, who now heads up the Consortium on Reading Excellence (CORE), served as California school chief in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In a state that was still under the trance of Reaganism, Honig was odd man out in insisting on higher levels of education funding. He frequently sparred with conservative governors George Deukmejian, thenPete Wilson, who were intent on slashing state education spending in a state that used to rank in the top 10 in financial support for public schools. In 2013, the state ranked 49th on school spending.

In addition to shoring up support for education, Honig was determined to implementreforms – including new curriculum frameworks, more robust student achievement assessments, and innovations in teacher professional development that became national models.

Honig’s relations with Republican state leaders reached their lowest point during the Wilson administration when the State Board of Education actually took Honig to court to dilute his powers.

Then the state put Honig on trial for conflict of interest over $337,509 in state Department of Education contracts connected to his wife. A judicial hawk presiding over the caserefused the defense to present its case and instructed the jury in such a narrow way to practically assure conviction.

Honig’s conviction automatically barred him from serving in state office, so he resigned. He eventually had the felony convictions reduced to misdemeanors. But he never completely left the education scene, tirelessly pushing the education ideas he believes in.

Now, it appears state leaders in California may be listening to those ideas. So we asked Honig if California is on an education path that is an alternative to what the rest of the nation is doing.

For quite some time, most federal and state education policy has been dominated by what’s often called a “reform” agenda. Anyone opposed to that is accused of supporting the “status quo.” How do you see the debate?

That accusation is a transparent debating ploy. People opposed to the “reforms” understand the need to improve our schools but contend that the high-stakes, test-driven Common Core consequences: “What currently passes for reform’ has caused considerable collateral damage to schools and teachers” - Salon.com: