Business Group Presents Plan to Overhaul, Bolster Public Schools

Concerned about weak public schools and efforts to improve them, the California Business Roundtable unveiled a plan Wednesday for overhauling the state’s public schools. But Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig immediately labeled the plan “wild” and “impractical.”

The group’s proposals, which were drawn up by an educational research firm after a yearlong study, calls for such changes as a decentralized school governance system similar to New York’s, year-round school statewide, parental freedom to choose schools, elimination of kindergarten and first grade and “market incentives” to increase competition among schools.

“The system has deteriorated to the point where we need fundamental change” in the structure of schools, said Whittaker Corp. Chairman Joseph F. Alibrandi, who heads the education task force of the roundtable, which represents 90 major corporations.

Honig, however, took exception to several of the plan’s components, as well as with its suggestion that reform efforts to date have been inadequate.

‘Wild Idea’

“I think it’s a wild idea to say let’s not start school until (the age of) 7,” for instance, he said. “I don’t see any evidence that that would be a better plan.”

Alibrandi said the proposals were drafted by Berman, Weiler Associates, a Berkeley-based education research firm, and will be presented to legislators and other groups around the state to stimulate discussion on the quality of education.

Among the changes urged in the group’s report are:

- Eliminating kindergarten and first grade and offering preschool programs to all children between ages of 4 and 6. It would concentrate basic academic instruction from ages 7 to 16.

- After passing an “exit exam” measuring competency in basic academic areas at the end of 10th grade, students would choose their own specialized program for two years, which could include college preparatory work or vocational education. The learning could be provided by a high school or by a public or private college.

- A change in state law that would enable parents to send their children to any school within a district, as long as the free flow of students did not result in segregation.

- Decentralize school governance by creating at each school a “community board” of parents and community members, who would have the legal authority to approve educational programs and budgets, and an advisory “coordinating council” consisting of the principal and teachers. District boards would remain but with less control over programs at individual schools.

- Make year-round school calendars the norm statewide in order to make more efficient use of teachers and school facilities.

- Require all students to learn and become fluent in a second language other than English and continue to teach non-English-speaking students in their native language until they become proficient in English.

- More autonomy and higher salaries for teachers.

Honig said he was troubled by the proposal that formal academic instruction would be completed by the end of the 10th grade.

“I think it ought to go the other way,” he said. “Students need the extra year of science, the extra year of math.”

In addition, he said he found the roundtable’s recommendation to decentralize school systems a poor idea that has not succeeded in districts that tried it.

He also questioned the low estimate offered by the group of how much its proposals would cost. According to Alibrandi, an additional $3 billion over the next 10 years--in addition to the $22 billion a year the state currently spends on kindergarten through 12th grade--would be required. He said the businesses represented in the roundtable would be willing to provide some of the money. He would not specify, however, how that money would be raised.

Illiteracy Rates

The group estimates that 500,000 to 600,000 new jobs a year will need workers who are well educated and creative, but high dropout and adult illiteracy rates will make those jobs hard to fill.

“Wouldn’t it be a damn shame if we created all those jobs,” Alibrandi said, “and didn’t have the people trained to take them over?”

The roundtable is a nonpartisan organization founded in 1976 to improve the overall economic climate in the state. It includes the chief executive officers of such companies as Hughes Aircraft, Westinghouse and Bank of America.