Students mingle before heading to the first day of class at Anaheim High School in Anaheim, CA on Wednesday, August 10, 2022. Public high schools will start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. after a new state law went into effect July 1st. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
One of the great scandals in California is the abysmal quality of the public education system. California high schoolers are graduating unable to meet basic English and mathematics standards. This does not bode well for the future of our state or our country.
According to newly released Smarter Balanced test results, just 46.7% of California’s students met state standards in English language arts this year.
That’s down from 51.7% in 2019.
Likewise, just 34.6% of California students met state standards in mathematics, down from 39.8% in 2019.
Some of what we’re seeing is the terrible consequence of school districts shutting down in-person schooling for far too long during the coronavirus pandemic, which never posed a serious risk to young people.
But while the 2019 test results were better than the results now being registered, they weren’t acceptable then, either. You can be sure, though, that those defending California’s K-12 status quo will obfuscate and deflect reality by blaming everything on the coronavirus pandemic. This is not the case.
California’s K-12 education system has been in serious trouble for a long time and that’s in large part due to the stranglehold of powerful, big-spending teachers unions over the public education system.
From their fierce opposition to even the most modest of tenure reform proposals to their gradual dismantling of charter schools, the teachers unions and their Democratic allies have fostered conditions that consistently yield mediocre educational outcomes.
If you want to talk about disparate outcomes, California’s educational system is producing plenty of them.
As documented by EdSource, 70% of Black students in California failed to meet state standards in English and 83.1% failed to meet state standards in math.
Likewise, 63.9% of Latino students failed to meet state standards in English and 77.3% failed to meet state standards in math.
The economically disadvantaged as a whole are falling behind in teachers union-run schools. Of them, 64.7% failed to meet state standards in English and 77.1% failed to meet state standards in math.
Behind all of these numbers are California students being inadequately educated with the basic tools needed to take on the lives ahead of them.
If this were a Republican state, Democrats would certainly denounce the education system as systemically racist and the policy preferences of the teachers unions as harmful to the interests of California students.
But because this is the Democrats’ one-party state and the teachers unions throw around plenty of money to influence school boards and state legislators, California remains stuck with a truly disgraceful K-12 education system.
This is not due to a lack of money. As noted by CalMatters last year, California is now spending upwards of $24,000 per student per year. Unfortunately for students, much of that is going toward bailing out the state teacher pension fund and administrative bloat.
California students and families deserve better. We know from past public polling that most California parents support a school voucher system. Unfortunately, they keep electing politicians for whom any discussion of vouchers, or even modest education reform, is off the table.
Until voters make better decisions, their children will continue to be poorly educated in California’s government schools.
