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Peter
Schrag is the former editorial-page editor of the Sacramento Bee and
writes frequently about education. He is the author, most recently,
of Paradise Lost: California's Experience, America's Future (New Press).
His new book, Final Test: The Battle for Adequacy in America's Schools,
has just been published by the New Press. |
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"The
Latino kids are your future. They are the future of this state's
economy. That if the state's going to continue to grow, and to pay
for our retirement, we better have well-trained, able workers."
"There
was a kind of esprit that I don't think you find to the same extent
any longer. I don't think any governor has talked with as much brilliance
about the state as Pat Brown did back in the 60's."
"Our
demographics are the direction the whole country is heading. Which
is going to be more heavily Latino and Hispanic. And so if we don't
succeed here in this, we're in deep trouble."
"We
persuaded ourselves years ago that we were a high tax state, and
after the passage of Proposition 13, we became an average tax state."
"This
state is a test it seems to me for the country, and I think that's
what makes it important."
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JOHN
MERROW
Describe California schools today.
PETER SCHRAG
Well, Anglo whites have been for some time a minority in schools.
Schools are overwhelmingly a majority of Latino, black and the kids
are increasingly poor so the strains on the schools are much greater
than they were 40 years go.
JOHN MERROW
So you're saying California's spending less even as the burdens on
the school have gone up?
PETER SCHRAG
Yes. The burdens being kids coming with weaker home support, less
command of English, more poverty, more single parent families - none
of which is always individually disability, but collectively it has
obviously made an impact. The other thing is that as our overall pupil
spending has gone down, teacher salaries almost necessarily have stayed
up. So that's had an enormous impact on everything else in the schools.
JOHN MERROW
Like what?
PETER SCHRAG
Counselors. Nurses. Arts programs. Music programs, the crowding We
did class size reduction in California two years ago. But we still
have one of the largest class sizes in the country, maybe second or
third from the bottom.
JOHN MERROW
You’re a journalist, but you're also a parent. What's been your
sense of California public education over the last 25 years?
PETER SCHRAG
Overall as a parent, I've had very mixed feelings about it. We have
been in Davis, which is a University town and has a reputation of
having good schools, all of that. And on the whole, schools were pretty
good. But I want to tell you one wonderful California story. When
our son started junior high in 1982 there was a meeting for parents
and new students and they had the principal talk, and they talked
about what a wonderful school it was, that there were no drugs etc.
And then the student council president got up and talked about all
the activities they had and the sports and what not. This whole thing
went on for maybe an hour. Nobody once mentioned academics. It wasn't
that they said we've got a good math program, or we've got great high
academic standards. Not a word. I said "Would you tell us something
about your academic program?" And they said "Oh. Oh, yes."
So ...
JOHN MERROW
So it may not have been much of a focus.
PETER SCHRAG
Not much of a focus. But at the same time, a lot of schools in Davis
were quite good, and there were wonderful teachers. But it was a mixed
picture. And I think the whole sort of story of California is that,
in the sort of presumably golden age, before all these bad things
happened, the schools still weren't wonderful. There was a time at
one point when Robert Hutchins said; "In California, the high
school is the place where the band practices." I think that was
a little bit nasty. But there certainly was some of that in our school
culture.
JOHN MERROW
I spoke to another journalist, Richard Colvin,
whose kids have been in California public schools, and he said you
know, my wife and I thought they were good schools. And then they
got a fellowship to go off to Michigan, and his kids went to the public
schools there...
PETER SCHRAG
And he was shocked.
JOHN MERROW
He was stunned.
PETER SCHRAG
I think that's true. And people who come here - and particularly people
who came here all through the period of the '80's and into the '90's
- whether it was from the Midwest, or the East or whatever, who came
from relatively good schools - were shocked at how bad things were
in a lot of the schools. And the lack of resources, the crowding,
the terrible conditions of the schools, the physical conditions of
the schools.
I remember
when Jonathan Kozol
wrote his very famous book "Savage Inequalities" ... He
talked about in some schools in St. Louis, the leaky roofs and the
ceiling tiles falling down, and the toilets that were broken. Well,
we have all these problems in the suburbs out here, not just in the
impacted urban districts, because everything was deferred maintenance.
I mean it's clear that compared to the rest of the country we are
doing badly - and that's also in a whole lot of other things:
Arts programs, music programs, phys ed, language programs, counselors,
nurses, librarians ... libraries. A few years ago I did some research
on some of this stuff. I think we had fewer librarians total, as an
absolute number than there are in the state of Alabama.
And even though until a year or two ago, California had four or five
years of good times, we never caught up. We simply didn't catch up,
and now of course we're back into a horrendous budget deficit, so
whatever we didn't recover in the last four or five years, which is
a lot, it's only going to get worse over the next couple of years.
JOHN MERROW
In your book, Paradise Lost, you suggest that this is really
racial.
PETER SCHRAG
I don't think it's overtly racial. I suggest it's racial in this sense,
in that in 1978, we passed Proposition 13,
which was a big tax cutting measure. In the years since, we began
to have this very great disconnect between people who sent their kids
to school, who tended to be more poor minority, and the people who
don't, who are white, middle class, older and so on. And whereas in
the 50's and 60's - the glory times of California
growth and optimism - we had pretty much of a congruity between
parents of the school children and voters, now those two populations
have become disconnected a great deal of the time. So particularly
for the 80's and 90's, but even to this present day, the people who
voted were not the people who sent their kids to schools. People who
voted might have had kids who went to public schools 20 years ago,
but they're not in school now. So there's a growing disconnect.
And I obviously have talked like this for some time in my pieces for
the paper (The Sacramento Bee), and magazine pieces and so on. And
I'd get letters and phone calls from readers saying, "why should
we do this for them?"
JOHN MERROW
What's your answer?
PETER SCHRAG
The answer is, they are your future, folks. I mean them, the Latino
kids. They are your future. They are the future of this state's economy.
That if the state's going to continue to grow, and to pay for our
retirement, we better have well-trained, able workers.
JOHN MERROW
You believe that's what's at stake?
PETER SCHRAG
For California? There's no question, this is our population. And I
think a lot of other things are at stake, not just the economy. We
talked about California as being a harbinger of the future and so
on. Certainly our demographics are the direction the whole country
is heading. Which is going to be more heavily Latino and Hispanic.
And so if we don't succeed here in this, we're in deep trouble.
You know, Joan Didion wrote - and this was 30 years ago - she wrote
"Things better work here, because this is where we run out of
continent." And it seems to me that we could put that on a state
flag. "Things better work here, because this is where we run
out of continent."
JOHN MERROW
Thirty years ago California was very positive about education...
PETER SCHRAG
Oh, yes, absolutely. The higher education system was expanding and
open. They created this wonderful thing called "The Master Plan"
which we're still living under, which was essentially a commitment
to anybody in the state that there would be a place for them somewhere
in the higher education system, at least in the community colleges.
And of course the idea was if you were successful in the community
college, you could go on to a four year university. But there was
a commitment of access to everybody. And that still exists, obviously,
on paper. But this was way ahead of anybody else. It became a global
model of accessibility.
JOHN MERROW
It sounds as if there was a kind of "can do" and "ought
to do" mentality that doesn’t seem to exist now.
PETER SCHRAG
There was a total "can do" attitude. And it was partly in
public service, in everything from water projects to highways, and
certainly schools and universities. There was also a "can do"
attitude in terms of larger public policy with eight civil rights
acts, fair housing laws, things of that sort. On the whole, government
was a very positive gung ho set of institutions.
JOHN MERROW
It's not hard to find older people who will talk about the
good old days in public education. It is hard to find data, concrete
evidence, that says "Yes, the schools were really terrific back
in the 50's, or 60's, or even 70's.
PETER SCHRAG
There were no measures. There are no measures. I looked for them too
when I was doing my book. There aren't any out there. There were no
tests. There were no national test scores. I mean in terms of national
comparisons, they really didn't have very much of anything until the
early 90's.
JOHN
MERROW
But everybody believed California schools were good.
PETER SCHRAG
And
I think the parents and the people in the state believed it. Which
I think is the most important thing. And they had lots of resources
and they had lots of stuff. Whether it was dance programs or it was
art programs, or it was sports and all of that ... There was a kind
of esprit that I don't think you find to the same extent any longer.
I don't think any governor has talked with as much brilliance about
the state as Pat Brown did back in the 60's.
JOHN MERROW
What if anything makes you angry about all of this?
PETER SCHRAG
Lots of things. Missed opportunities. The sense that I think a lot
of Californians now are convinced that they're overtaxed and over
burdened. We persuaded ourselves years ago that we were a high tax
state, and after the passage of Proposition
13, we became an average tax state. And in a state like this,
where the cost of living is very high, that's not sufficient. And
I think part of it is in fact because a lot of those public services
are now services used by what we used to call in this country minorities
but in this state are really not minorities. And I think that's upsetting.
JOHN MERROW
What are the "missed opportunities" you’re talking
about?
PETER SCHRAG
Well, that we have a generation of kids not getting the opportunities
they deserve. Their lives are therefore going to be both more circumscribed
probably and they are going to be not able to contribute to the larger
society in terms of their own talents, in terms of their own richness,
as much as they could. This state is a test it seems to me for the
country, and I think that's what makes it important. How we do in
terms of this very complicated, diverse population of who knows how
many languages and how many ethnic groups. It is a test as to whether
this kind of really multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society can be successful.
JOHN MERROW
And if we fail the test?
PETER SCHRAG
We're going to be less of a country it seems to me than we could be.
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