State schools in California will have to face consequences if they fail to deliver quality education. According to a bill approved by the State Senate recently, parents who find the schools of their children failing to deliver can take them out and admit them in a school of their choice.
These proposals and changes are a part of the Race to the Top grants initiated by President Obama. These grants amount to $4.3 billion altogether and $700 million for California alone. Deadline to apply for the Federal grants must be submitted by the States before next month.
However, there have been a few skirmishes in California regarding plans on making the State competitive and eligible consequently killing two proposals. There is in fact very little time before the deadline on January 19th.
All States looking to qualify for the grants must show a strong commitment to reforms in the field of education. Plans in California include eliminating badly performing schools, dismissing teachers and even principals in failing schools and giving permission for certain schools to become a charter school.
A system will be initiated by the State to keep track of all students’ right from elementary school to college in order to try and understand the processes that work. This will also help evaluate principals and teachers using various data including test scores and credential science and math teachers.
Senator Gloria Romero authored Senate Bill 5 x 4 is controversial in the sense that it offers more power to parents. The bottom ten percent schools will now see an exodus of students due to bad academic performance. A part of the legislation will also allow parents the power to push poorly performing schools to opt for reform plans outlined in the bill to a maximum of 75 schools.
The original Senate legislation allowed schools with three or more API rankings to transfer. There was no limit to the number of parents who could make the schools compulsorily opt for reforms.
In a bid to make the state competitive, separate legislation pieces were already approved by both the Assembly as well as the Senate. A compromise was arrived at only recently when the governor’s office and leaders from both the houses sat down together. Regulations that have hitherto raised controversies have been prominently left out in order to bring about a compromise and strike a balance.
These include charter school regulations which found favour with Assembly Democrats. Even the provisions initiated and pushed by Romero and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger which empowered parents were conspicuously left out of discussions.
In order to become a law and come into practice, the Assembly has to first approve this bill. According to D-Sacramento’s Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, this Senate vote has brought us 90 percent of the way. He also said that the final ten percent will be satisfactorily worked out with the cooperation of the Assembly.
When this gets underway, hopefully we will see a significant improvement and enhancement of education quality in Californian schools.