Keep Some Steel in Schools Bills

School reform faces another test today, with the state Senate and Assembly scheduled to take important votes on Gov. Gray Davis’ education package. The four amended bills are not perfect, but they point in the right direction. They should be approved, without any further weakening, as a step toward changing the expectations and the outcomes of public education.

Approval of the education bills before the Legislature’s spring recess would allow implementation before the traditional September start of school, before more students lose ground. The most recent national reading scores, released earlier this month, add urgency to this mission. California fourth-graders showed little progress in the four years since the previous reading test of the National Assessment of Education Progress. They ranked second from the bottom.

Fourth-graders in Connecticut, Texas, Colorado and other states that are in the midst of demanding and systemic school reform recorded the greatest progress in reading test scores. The inevitable gains occurred even among poor, minority students who speak English as a second language.

There are four bills in the Davis package. Reading, the No. 1 education priority, would get much greater attention under a measure to establish reading academies to train emergency teachers in the teaching of phonics. One change in a provision of the bill that rewards schools on the basis of how many books or pages students read would allow affluent schools to compete only against other affluent schools and poor schools to compete only against other poor schools. That change is palatable, in the interest of equity, as long as expectations are not reduced for less-affluent children.

The high school graduation exam bill is also expected to pass, though as a result of compromise it would not take effect until the class of 2004 is in its final year.

The two accountability bills are more controversial. The teacher assistance and peer review bill is too strong for many teachers and not strong enough for many Republicans or for this newspaper, which supports timely dismissal of teachers who fail to perform in the classroom. Though the peer review would not be mandatory, nonparticipating school districts would lose state funding for teacher training and preparation.

The fourth measure, the so-called school accountability bill, has been softened to eliminate individual ranking of California’s 8,000 public schools, instead classing them in groups from the top 10th to the bottom 10th. The rankings would still provide much more information than is currently available. A more objectionable change stripped away the requirement that school improvement programs document their progress toward meeting state standards.

These bills have principle on their side, though uncertainty about costs could deter some legislators. Those lawmakers should remember that Davis, an old bean counter from his days as state controller, is not about to endorse spending wildly even on his No. 1 priority.

Demanding and exacting statewide school reform must take root in California. The education bills pending before the Legislature are far from all that is needed, but they are an honest start.