CA: Problems are clear - solution, too (ACLU&schools lawsuit misses real solution - vouchers)

OC Register ^ | 8/25/04 | Alan Bonsteel

[NormsRevenge]

On Aug. 10, the Schwarzenegger administration reached an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union to settle its lawsuit demanding better education for California's neediest students. The good news is the lawsuit focused enormous attention on how decrepit and dysfunctional our public schools have become, especially those serving our most disadvantaged families. The bad news is it will do nothing to improve our public schools.

After the suit was launched by the ACLU in 2000, the Davis administration fought it with the $320-per-hour O'Melveny and Myers law firm and $14.5 million in legal fees. Their hardball lawyers deposed kids as young as 8 years old, grilling them about whether the small long-tailed animal they saw in the classroom was really a rat.

The Davis administration claimed that the state of California, despite paying for almost 70 percent of the cost of running our public schools and despite an 11-volume education code that specifies in excruciating detail how our public schools would be run, actually could not be held responsible for the sorry state of our public schools. It pointed its finger at the school districts instead.

The agreement that was finally reached holds neither the state nor the districts responsible for change, but rather the county offices of education. It is an odd choice, indeed; unknown to the majority of voters, the county education offices are the black hole of our public education system. Charged primarily with schooling our most disruptive kids, the county system's substandard "community schools," as they are euphemistically known, graduate only trickles of students.

The agreement requires that a notice be posted in every classroom advising that dissatisfied parents can contact their county office of education. Lots of luck.