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TABLE OF
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
With the passage of
Senate Concurrent Resolution 29 in 1999, which called for the creation of a
Master Plan for Education, California began a journey that will take it to a new
destination in a new century – to a comprehensive and cohesive educational
system that is attentive to learner needs, literally from birth through old age.
This Master Plan for Education will serve as the roadmap for that journey, with
two primary goals: to provide every family with the resources, services, and
support it needs to give every child the best possible start in life and in
school; and to provide every public school, college, and university with the
resources and authority to ensure that every student receives a rigorous,
quality education.
Since a child entering preschool in 2002 can expect to
graduate from high school in 2016 and, if he or she chooses, complete her or his
bachelor's degree in 2020, our Master Plan must anticipate the learning needs of
Californians far into the future. It is beyond our ability to know with
precision the learning needs of Californians in 2020; however, we can and we
must make our best attempt to envision what those future needs will be and craft
an educational blueprint that helps frame the decisions we make today through
anticipating the needs of tomorrow.
Several compelling reasons lead us
to construct a comprehensive Master Plan at this time. First, the students who
are faring least well in our public schools, colleges, and universities –
largely students from low-income families and students of color – also
make up the greater proportion of California’s increasing population.
Second, until recent years, California has taken great pride, and invested
heavily, in the quality of its education system. Third, as it was in 1959 when
the Master Plan for Higher Education was first developed, California is
challenged by estimates of large education enrollment demand that can be
accommodated only with careful planning and sufficient investment. Fourth, also
similar to the conditions of postsecondary education in 1959, today
California’s K-12 education system is governed by a fragmented set of
entities that sometimes operate in conflict with one another, to the detriment
of the educational services offered to students. Finally, and most importantly,
our entire state stands to benefit from a high quality educational system that
uses effective strategies to help learners achieve their educational objectives,
that responds to high priority public needs, and that continuously engages in
efforts to envision the future learning needs of Californians.
THE PROBLEM
Education is a
vital interest of our state in that it provides Californians with the knowledge
and skills to maintain our system of government, to foster a thriving economy,
and to provide the foundation for a harmonious society. As the global economy
continues to evolve, Californians require additional, enriching educational
opportunities throughout their lives. Today, students enter, exit, and re-enter
the education system at various points of their lives, bringing increasingly
diverse learning needs to each classroom. To be responsive to
Californians’ varied educational needs, we must have a cohesive education
system in which all segments, from pre-kindergarten through university, are
aligned and coordinated.
Despite the many benefits that California has
enjoyed from its educational investments, there are distressing signals that
these investments are no longer providing the returns we have come to expect,
indeed that we require in the 21st century. These indicators are
particularly distressing when viewed through the lens of unequal opportunities
to learn. Schools serving large concentrations of low-income students, as well
as those serving large numbers of Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans, too
often have large numbers of teachers with emergency teaching permits and who
lack the expertise to teach effectively the subject matter and grade levels to
which they have been assigned. These teachers often are asked to teach at
school sites that are in poor states of maintenance and that fail to provide
proper instructional support materials. This is frequently followed by high
professional staff turnover, which deprives these students of consistent role
models and assistance in planning their educational experiences. These
inequalities underscore the importance of finding ways to obtain a better return
on the public’s education investment than is currently being realized, as
the following indicators reveal:
- Barely half of California 4th and
8th graders (52 percent in both cases) demonstrated even basic
competence in mathematics as measured by the 2000 administration of the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often cited as the nation’s
report card. Only 15 percent of 4th graders and 18 percent of
8th graders demonstrated proficiency in mathematics that year.
- NAEP scores from 1998, the most recent numbers
available, reveal that 48 percent of 4th graders and 64 percent of
8th graders were basic readers, while fewer than one quarter of
4th and 8th graders were proficient or advanced
readers.
- Fewer than half of California’s
4th and 8th graders demonstrated a basic understanding of
science on the 2000 administration of NAEP, ranking California’s students
last among the 40 states that participated. Only 14 percent of 4th
graders and 15 percent of 8th graders demonstrated proficiency in
science.
- Only 56.9 percent of Latino students who
entered high school in 1996 graduated four years later. Black students had a
similar graduation rate of only 57.8 percent. In contrast, Asian and White
students graduated at rates of 86.3 percent and 77.6 percent, respectively.
- First-year admission to the California State
University (CSU) and University of California (UC) is limited to the top
one-third and one-eighth, respectively, of high school graduates in the state.
Despite the selective nature of these applicant pools, about half of all
regularly admitted freshmen to CSU during the past decade have required remedial
instruction in English or mathematics, or both, while approximately one-third of
UC freshmen have required remedial instruction in English.
- Among the graduates of California public high
schools, White students are roughly twice as likely as their Black and Latino
peers to attain CSU and UC eligibility, and Asian graduates are roughly twice as
likely as their White counterparts to attain CSU and UC eligibility – a
relationship that has existed since 1983.
- Data compiled by the California Council on
Science and Technology (2001) indicate that women of all races and African
American and Latino men represent underutilized pools of labor in the science
and technology sector (which provide high paying jobs). Differences in
educational attainment and in choice of educational major contribute to their
under-representation in science and technology occupations and industries.
- The percentage of American households with at
least one computer doubled from 1994 to 2000, rising from 24.1 percent to 51
percent. Computer ownership varies by racial, ethnic, and income groups,
however, with 55.7 percent of White households and 65.6 percent of Asian
households owning a computer in 2000 compared to 32.6 percent and 33.7 percent
of Black and Latino households, respectively.
- The percentage of U.S. households with
Internet access was 41.5 percent in 2000. Fewer than one in four Black and
Latino households had Internet access in 2000, 23.5 percent and 23.6 percent,
respectively. These rates contrast markedly with 46.1 percent of White
households and 56.8 percent of Asian households.
These data
are indicative of the huge gap that exists between what Californians need from
their educational system and what they are actually receiving. To date, this
gap has been only marginally affected by the many reforms that have been imposed
on our public schools, colleges, and universities since the mid-1980s. It
provides stark evidence that a piecemeal approach to reforming education is
ineffective. A comprehensive, long-term approach to restructuring education in
California is clearly needed, and this restructuring must have a clear focus on
improved student achievement.
THE VISION
This California
Master Plan for Education must provide a long-term vision for an education
system that is available to every Californian and that focuses on both learner
needs and outcomes. This Plan is intended to serve as a framework to guide
state and local policy-makers, as well as our educational institutions,
agencies, and leaders, in making decisions that support this focus; to provide
clear statements of expectations and goals; and to facilitate flexibility for
local needs and opportunities. This Plan should further encourage and guide
collaboration between and among educational institutions, community-based
organizations, and businesses.
A Vision for California’s
Educational System
California will develop and maintain a cohesive system of
first-rate schools, colleges, and universities that prepares all students for
transition to and success in the next level of education, the workforce, and
general society, and that is responsive to the changing needs of our state and
our people.
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If this Master Plan’s goals are to be met, our
schools, colleges, and universities must make serving students’ learning
needs their principal focus, even at the most advanced levels of education.
School districts, county and regional entities, postsecondary institutions, and
the State must collaborate to ensure the availability of the necessary resources
to meet learner needs. All functions and policies of the education system
should be regularly reviewed and revised to ensure that each supports this
focus; in short, this vision requires a dynamic plan that is comprehensive,
informed by data , and reviewed regularly for evidence of progress and need for
revision.
Foundational Principle
The
fundamental principle that serves as the foundation for this Master Plan is that
an effective and accountable education system must focus first and foremost on
the learner. Policies, practices, structures, and financing must all be
re-evaluated and modified as needed to ensure they are supportive of learners
and their acquisition of the knowledge and skills that will enable them to be
successful learners throughout their lifetimes.
Equal opportunity for all
has been a broad goal of American public education for generations. Only in
approximately the last thirty years, however, have the nation’s
educational and political establishments begun to develop a commitment to a
two-pronged refinement of that goal, one unprecedented in any culture in
history: First, the schools will be capable of providing the various kinds of
instructional and other support necessary for all children to succeed,
including children whose readiness to learn has received little or no
attention prior to their entering school, and whose life circumstances continue
to be less conducive to formal education than those of many others. Second, all
children will not only begin school in an education system prepared to
‘take them as it finds them,’ but their persistence in that system
will be developed, nurtured, and rewarded such that they will all ultimately
graduate from high school with the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind
requisite to self-initiated, life-long learning. This Master Plan is
California’s first comprehensive template for the accomplishment of that
radical goal.
We must engage every child so he or she knows
there is a place for him or her in our schools and in our society. We must
engage communities both to foster a shared sense of purpose and to share
responsibility for preparing and supporting every student. Ultimately, we must
engage our entire state and its policymakers to make all Californians aware of
the needs and purposes of our state’s education system and the critical
importance of planning for a future in which we raise the educational bar for
all students while simultaneously opening the doors of opportunity wider than
ever before.
Our committee’s focus on learners and the foregoing
goals for students coincide with a newfound understanding of human brain
development and learning. As the tenets of this Master Plan are implemented
over time, every element of California’s education system can be informed
by this knowledge to ensure that appropriate learning opportunities occur at
optimal times for learners, resulting in gains in every student’s
knowledge and cognitive development.
Further, each of the principal
objectives of the work undertaken by the committee and its seven working groups
derives from our focus on learners. We have sought to identify ways in which
our educational institutions can become more coherent or ‘seamless,’
providing learners with school and college experiences free of educational and
bureaucratic impediments. We have sought to ensure equity within
California’s education system through recommendations that distribute the
resources and opportunities necessary to provide a high quality education to
every student, irrespective of his or her circumstances. Finally, we have
sought to create effective and comprehensive accountability for the entire
education system by delineating authority and responsibility for all its
participants in a manner that ensures each can be held accountable for ensuring
students learn according to our formal expectations.
Engaging the
populace in planning for a more effective, learner-focused education system,
particularly in a system as large and complex as California’s, requires
creativity, a willingness to take risks , and a healthy amount of patience.
Nonetheless, if California’s vision for its educational enterprise is to
be realized, it is imperative that all Californians become personally involved
in the education and well-being of our learners – young and old alike. It
is the challenge of this Master Plan for Education both to make that engagement
happen and to guide it as it does.
Organization of the
Plan
The Joint Committee’s vision is certainly
ambitious. Ultimately, its implementation will require clear perspectives and
input on the extent to which the vision remains in sight and within reach. This
report provides those perspectives through its focus on four critical areas of
California’s educational system: (1) access, (2) achievement, (3)
accountability, and (4) affordability. Each of the corresponding sections of
this Plan provides a context for the interpretation of subsequent findings and
recommendations, describes today’s realities, and offers specific
recommendations on what priorities should be pursued. Consistent with the goal
of constructing a cohesive education system, recommendations specific to K-12 or
postsecondary education are separately listed only when necessary to address
unique features of these portions of the education system. Similarly, this 2002
Master Plan seeks to delineate clearly the functions, responsibilities, and
authority that should reside with state-level entities and those that should be
delegated to regional and local entities. Finally, the Plan proposes benchmarks
and indicators that we can use to judge the progress of its
implementation.
THE PLAN
While
California’s commitment to educating its people encompasses all levels of
education, a crucial distinction exists between the State’s obligations
regarding elementary and secondary, as distinct from postsecondary, education.
California’s State Supreme Court has ruled, in its decisions on Serrano
(1976) and Butt (1990), that citizens of California have a
fundamental right to an elementary and secondary education. This fundamental
right (also referred to as a fundamental interest of citizens of the state)
derives from several provisions of California’s constitution and statutes,
taken together: Article IX of the Constitution, Sections 1 and 5, which obligate
the State to provide a system of free common schools; the constitution’s
equal protection provisions, Article I, Section 7, and Article IV, Section 16;
and Education Code Section 48200, imposing compulsory attendance. As a
corollary of Californians’ fundamental right, the State incurs a
fundamental obligation to sustain that right, which receives the highest order
of legal protections. The State and its schools are required to
equitably provide appropriate educational opportunities to all
students.
Postsecondary education, though not constitutionally guaranteed
to Californians, is nevertheless provided universally to our people as a
privilege. California’s people and policymakers clearly regard
postsecondary education as a vital interest of the state and throughout our
history have demonstrated a deep commitment to it by supporting a set of
affordable public colleges and universities as ultimately defined in the 1960
Master Plan for Higher Education. Participation in postsecondary
education is voluntary, however, and not constitutionally guaranteed to be free
of charge. As a result of these differences, postsecondary education does not
incur the same order of legal obligations for the State as does K-12 education.
Correspondingly, postsecondary education also is not subject to many of the
strictures that apply to the K-12 system. These distinctions will necessarily
require that, even in a cohesive Master Plan for Education, certain components
will have to be treated differently between the sectors of California’s
education system.
A critical element of the learning process is a
child’s readiness to learn. Just as experiences at each earlier grade
have an impact on a student’s preparedness for success at the next level
of education, there are factors that promote a child’s readiness to
succeed in her or his first experiences in school. Early education and
development in pre-kindergarten settings can provide the socialization and
coping skills and the developing literacy and numeracy skills that lead to these
successes. Although no constitutional guarantee or statutory commitment has
previously existed for California’s pre-school age children, our state has
a profound interest in making available to all families who desire them the
early education opportunities that support a child’s social, physical,
linguistic, and cognitive development.