RE: Opportunity to Learn Standards

I actually think that the "Opportunity to Learn" standards, and related recommendations in the MP are a prescription for an assured disaster. 

Certainly children deserve to be taught by qualified teachers, have enough good and aligned instructional materials, and spend their time in a clean and safe environment. That is why we already spend 50 billion dollars or more every year on education.
But the proposed OTL as described in the MP is much more than that.

1. Today the state transfers the money to the local school district that needs to provide all these, and the state just monitors the districts for gross mis-executions. Many districts do wonderful jobs. Some don't. Many of these that don't, have more than average money per student - it is not the money that is most often lacking, but ineptitude and financial mismanagement.

So instead, the MP proposes that the STATE guarantee the delivery. Well, we have just disposed of all local school boards, and transferred everything to the centralized bureaucracy in Sacramento. Does anyone really believe they will do any better job? 

2. The OTL recommendations try to include in it not only qualified teachers and textbooks, but also "economic disadvantage", immunization, access to health care, and many more. And they lower the bar to include also pre-school children. How early? It does not say, but possibly as early as 2-3 years, citing mostly irrelevant research on "brain development".

So instead  of 50 billions, we will be soon talking about twice as much, with no end in sight, all managed from Sacramento. Suddenly family wages and health insurance become "education" and we all know that "every child has the right to education"...

3. The MP recommends that the OTL "index" will be published in parallel to the API. I prefer to call it the "Excuse Index". Because that what it will do -- it will legitimize lower expectations for students and teachers in "low OTL" schools. Dirty bathroom? You are excused from 20 points of API. Low income region? 50 points off. No pre-school state nannies available? 70 points off, as "your brain did not have a chance to develop". What about examples such as Jaime Escalante, Inglewood or Azusa school districts, which clearly show that the excuses of OTL are just that - excuses, and mostly racist at that?

4. And how about this as part of OTL:
"(7.3) To achieve equity as well as reduced provider charges through the use of collective purchasing power, the State itself should negotiate with statewide employee organizations, and fund the employer share of, uniform non-salary employment benefits for all local school employees."

Yeah, they just want to save money for the state…How will this improve children's "opportunity to learn"?

The whole OTL section looks like a huge pitch to expand the definition of "education", centralize the control and money in Sacramento, expand teacher benefits, and it intentionally confuses "equal opportunity" with "equal outcomes".

And this covers only a part of the "Access to High Quality Education" section. I did not even touch on attempts to destroy UC faculty autonomy, have Schools of Ed. (yes, those bastions of intellectual excellence!) have a say over giving tenure to staff of other departments, and much much more.

Have we gone mad?