re: question of the day

1.) I would hope to see reduced what appears to me to be an overly ambitious plan that would require a vast increase in government expenditures. I would like to see a staged deployment of the plan focused on targeting existing resources to their highest and best use. I would like to see a system where the learning of California's kids took priority over the adults who work in the system.

2.) There is a currently available tool that would greatly improve alignment. That is our existing state standards generally acknowledged to be quite good. If teachers made sure that their students mastered the standards for their grade, the next grade teachers would have a platform of student competencies from which to meet their corresponding obligations.  It very difficult for a teacher to meet the standards for their grades when they have to teach what should have been already learned in previous years. 

3.) Accountability needs to focus first and foremost on individual students and their teachers. You need to test students before they go into a classroom and when they leave it to measure what they have learned.  There will always be a gap between some things that we know are valuable skills and our ability to measure them accurate and consistently. But testing is still essential.

4.) I suspect that the public at large will have little input into Master Plan. It will be crafted by a tiny section of the population consisting of those interested, and part of that will be self-interest.  If the final plan resembles the draft, the real question here should be whether the public will be willing to pay for it or vote to have others pay for it.  I question the likelihood of the former but the later is a real possibility. I have not noticed any estimates of the cost of all the proposals in the draft. Could someone direct me to them.