Jim Cooper's Orange County; Bill Honig Interview

Program want to wait. California now ranks 50th in bottom place among all 50 states in the amount of per capita income it now spends for its public education school funding has been drastically cut and more cuts may be coming as the new legislature grappled with the budget deficit of up to two billion dollars. The new state superintendent Republican struction says he agree that more money is needed but he wants it tied to improvement in the quality of education. I'm Jim Cooper and I'll talk today with Mr. HORNIK on his priority to achieve these objectives. Who make up the biggest business operated by the state public education in California.

It involves 4 million students 180000 teachers and seven thousand schools. Schools bending now equals about 11 billion dollars about 45 percent of the state's 25 billion dollar budget. The man elected to lead the schools for the state has been very vocal about the need for significant and demonstrably quality improvement along with any increase in funding. Bill horning calls both a law degree and a master's degree in education. He served as superintendent of the Read the Union Elementary School District where he tightened discipline and where student testing scores improved by 10 points. He served on the State Board of Education from 1975 to 1982 has been a school teacher and was formerly legal counsel on education policy for the State Department finance. He regarded as an expert on curricular development as Superintendent of Public Instruction he now has a staff of about 400 people. I think a lot of the people. That you now see you in this new job would like to have you explain how you intend to get this very difficult question you have for

equality tied to more funding. You have an off the cuff answer for that one. Think there are three places that I'm working currently and three agendas basically. First one has to do with the department itself. What can we do in that department to reorganize redirect its mission. So that's both becomes more efficient and does those kinds of activities that are essential if we're going to improve quality. Up till now the department has a large staff. It's been mostly engaged in activities collecting data paperwork and and putting together reports that aren't really utilized that much in the day to day operations of the schools or in insisting upon quality. So we want to cut back there and we want to shift to a mission of more support for local districts in the areas of science and math and curricular develop instructional leadership and so forth. That's number one. Number two it internal. That's an internal reorganization of the department and that's expensive it's time consuming and tremendous amount of complaints in the

field about wasted effort and wasted time and expense staff of almost 400. Well actually there's more that they're around. There are around sixteen hundred people and then there's another thousand people in the special schools. So it gets to be twenty six hundred people. If you take those out put them there and if you put those on there and the specialist you had them in writing the second area of this important is how do you get enough funds to run this system. Now I agree with you we are significantly behind the rest of the country in the amount of investment we're making in our sort of half of the capital investment you can measure a variety of ways. I'm out of money with three hundred fifty dollars per pupil below what what they spent in other states that's about $11000 per class of 30. The idea are ranking 50 of the wealthy states like California behind Mississippi behind Alabama behind Georgia did you do you feel a sense of outrage about that and more than outrage our students are going to get the jobs we're going to be put at a competitive disadvantage if we don't do something to correct that situation in the figures. As you say 50th we are the

fourth state in per capita income in income. We were rich state and yet we devote a much lower percentage than other states and to education and that's why we rank 50th. We're actually 30 fifth in in the actual amount spent but it's still three hundred fifty dollars behind the average expenditure in the rest of the country and intolerable. And then college will figure for people in California in good conscience to accept what I would think so we are a technological state. If we don't do it we should be investing more in our students and if we're going to remain competitive technologically if we're going to compete in it with other countries or others other states so we've got some work to do. So you're saying besides the internal affairs reorganization that money is it gets to the next. How do I get how do we build back public confidence and support to the point where where that where the electorate in the state in the legislature in the state the people of the state are willing to invest what needs to be invested in our students. Think the only way you can do that you've got to have make the changes at the state level that will improve the quality. Link those changes to an amount of money we're

not going to get everything right away. We've got to work on an interim stages till we get to this point where we're radically funding our schools. I'm going to be recommending to the legislature a significant increase in the amount of money for schools but that increase will be tied inextricably linked to the kinds of changes that I think are necessary to upgrade the quality of education. And Al Gore were those are the two things yes I'd like him back. Those are two things that you have another. The other area is a cooperative effort in the field with local people teachers superintendents board members principals community a collective effort in this state to improve the quality of education. Much of what needs to be done can and must be done at the local level raising homework levels and making sure there's discipline in the classroom in the schools making sure that students take the right courses raising expectation levels doing something about grading patterns teaching the basic study skills. Would you call it this group that you're trying to coalesce the students for quality education.

Well that's part of it but. But initially what we're going to do is get and I've already had people who said they were willing to commit to this endeavor. Board members superintendents are being very supportive of this effort. They realize the connection between delivering better education and building back public support and they realize we have to do it for the children out there. So we're going to get the commitment of a large numbers of districts individual district board superintendents and people who will say we will for the next year take a look at our homework levels our discipline levels what courses we're teaching how we evaluate teachers and principals which books were adopted and so forth and we get enough people doing that moving in the right direction in this state will win the war. You have to do all these three priorities that you go through site that you hope to have that going simultaneously. I think we have to make the effort internally to make the proposals to the legislature momentarily though we're drafting those right now and trying to get strong authorship for those proposals. And then it's the organizing this effort in

the in the local areas to make the changes. My view of leadership is one you have to set an agenda what is it we're trying to achieve in public education. That's our vision of quality education and get people to believe in that and agree to that and be part of that effort. I think the selection that we just went through would help in that process. Gave a much more definitive view of what kind of education we should demand from our students and from our schools. Then it's setting an agenda for people to participate in work for and getting people to participate in that in that actual endeavor at all rivals. And if you can do that and get a sense of movement and get some get some changes occurring I think we'll see the schools move very rapidly. Let me read the book because it's rather apropos to this discussion this is a book called megatrends by John there's been a new book that says that are coming into an area of high Information Society high tech society high literacy society in which sophistication and communication skills and. High technology computer literacy are

absolutely necessary. He said that in 1908 part of the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation fitted most Americans are moving toward virtual scientific and technological illiteracy. They conclude that science and math programs in the U.S. Schools lag behind us as are Japan and Germany. And then he says the Carnegie Council of policy studies on Higher Education recently reported that because of deficits in our public school system about one third of our youth are ill educated ill employed and ill equipped to make their way in American society. A third indictment in the bellwether state of California. The dropout rate increased 83 percent during the 1970s and now it's three times the national average a final statement. A powerful normally is developing as we move into a more and more literacy intensive society. Our schools are giving us an increasingly inferior product SAT scores have been going down each year for more than a decade in 1080 scores it is an all time low for 24 for verbal 466 for math. Down from for

73 and for 96 in 1965. What's your reaction to that. Pretty grim indictment but I think it's a fair indictment and there are schools there are districts there are individual teachers that have shown us the way out of this morass. They've set high standards they've made serves students take the right courses they have the right expectation levels and they're getting good results. And that's why getting back to the proposals to the legislature what we're saying is one we've got to make and pass statewide graduation requirements for all students. And I'm advocating the following two years of science two years of mathematics three years of English three years of history a year fine arts that's a basic core course of study for all students whether going on to college where they're going on to work. And as you say and as you said as Nesbitt says. The jobs increasingly are becoming technological scientific managerial professional that's been half the job creating jobs created and this data is in the forefront of the neck what I call break Exactly. So we have got

to train our students to qualify for these jobs if we're going to be able to compete if they're going to get employed. And that's why I'm saying every child should take a baby basic or a course of study. Number two our students go to school to show too short a time. The average California student attends school about a year and a half or less by the time that student graduates from school. We've got a proposal to bring up the minimum levels of education. Put the money in and part of it pay for increased time and also lengthen the day to 180 years from 170 180 days per year. The 175 that will bring us up to at least two nationwide average is which I think is giving our children the right competitive advantage for a longer school day longer school day and year. Number three I think we've got to improve our accountability. Right now we test children but we don't test them in science we don't test them and in literature we don't test them in history. And therefore the message from the test is these subjects are as important. And most importantly we don't test in the higher order thinking skills the ability to

synthesize problem solve and that's as you said earlier that that's the exact as in exactly what we're going to need exactly what we're going to need if these children in a qualified were one of the thesis one of the theses you make in this is that by 1985 something like 85 percent of the jobs are going to be somewhere in this informational society rather than making things the informational processing the sophisticated communications skills. You know whether and how did that a percent or 60 percent or 85 percent of it that that's the way the trend that's where we're going and if we don't and if you look at Japan if you look at these other countries that have revamped their educational systems they stress these bills. They go to school longer they have higher expectations they make sure children take these kinds of courses. So we either. We either assure that our students get these courses that we have high expectations that we have a more rigorous system or we're going to be in trouble economically and most importantly we're something that's not talked about in a democracy. If you don't transmit your basic beliefs your underlying core values to your students to your youth then we are in danger of fragmenting as a society. So both for

economic reasons and because we don't hang together as a as a as a society or as a community or as a political body in a democracy. In less we make the case for our values our basic beliefs. We're not going to be around a part of your job is to be the advocate if you will the number one advocate in the whole day of California on behalf of those four million students. When you go before that the legislative committees the Education Committee the state finance committees when you go to those committees and stand before them and ask for more money are you going to say when you when you stand before them requesting additional financing that will be hooked to the thing that you've just ticked off the longer day the higher testing the more stringent requirements. Yes to me there will link them together a link with a link for several reasons one is the right thing to do. It's not just a question of money although that's a major problem and it's also a question of philosophy and this is a way of making a statement and making the changes that are necessary to get us moving in the right direction. Number two politically we've got to have sufficient funds to put into our schools and we've got to craft a package that can

attract broad enough support you need two thirds votes in each and each house if you're going to have revenue implications. So we've got attract Republicans we've got attract Democrats and my reading of the legislature is the leadership in the legislature is not ready this year to just accept more money. They want to see these reforms they know it's necessary. They're not willing to vote the significant increases that are necessary in this they're tied to the changes. And that's my question when you go before them when you have this reform package at the same time you have the same bill you had the same bill with an omnibus bill. There's been all kinds of suggestions on way to raise money Mr. Bascom Fellowes is suggesting for higher education of another nickel on cigarettes taxes there been state lottery idea do you have any magic formula on how to get that money at a time when we're looking at a billion and a half. Debtor state budget deficit. So I don't I'm not sure it's my job to to to develop propose revenue possibilities I can come up with several that are if we need to do it and if the state can't meet its bills then we're going to have to face the the implications of that and come up with the

revenue necessary. My argument is if you if you sabotage if you take away the funds from schools that are necessary to provide proper education we're all going to pay the price whether senior citizen whether businessmen whoever we are we are going to suffer from inadequately educating our students so it's an investment we have to make. And the funds are there to do it I think the reason that people are reluctant to adequately fund schools at this juncture is the fact that. We just haven't been delivering a high enough quality product so we're losing people who say yeah I mean I am interested in supporting the schools but I want to see you do a better job so we have got to make the changes at the state level that are necessary Rhi were working at the local level to improve quality and I think we'll see the public generally getting on our side and willing to support the kind of changes we're talking about. Let me pick up on that in the getting the public on your side. You've indicated in your in your statement during the campaign that you want to implement it by implementing the goals you plan to travel throughout the state to create a broadly supportive Coalition for educational quality

comprised of thousands of educators parents citizens members of the business community representatives of the media and other members of the public who are willing to speak out for a strengthened core academic program higher standards for discipline and proper preparation of our young. I think people like to hear how do you intend to do that. I had this vision of you being a pied piper for all of these carvers out of the California tell us how you're going to do that in a way that's correct I think that's and that's an accurate assessment of what what the job entails or shouldn't Hales run the department to that legislative package through this this effort at the local level. And number four you just referred to which is a an effort to try and encourage people who care about public education to get involved. And we're setting up what we call a foundation for quality education in California. Our aim is to get 30000 people involved parents teachers business people whole both variety of people who are going who care about quality and education are willing to fight for our schools. And we're we're going to try and utilize this foundation to educate people and what what's occurring now what's at

stake where we said these of the other countries and other other states about what what makes good education and what they can do about it. It's a I think it's a legitimate effort it's needed there are is no organization in California or in the United States that has a broad base and is willing to fight for public education for quality public education. Do you see yourself in a in that position for example or the CTA the teachers who are concerned with more teachers pay and that kind of thing do you see yourself in an adversarial position with those. Well I've had good discussions with the teacher groups now some of the items that we went through and there's a couple other upgrading the quality of professional staff. And for most of the things I'm talking about discipline raising standards expectation levels and teacher organized teacher groups and individual teachers are are strongly in support of these areas. They understand we've got to improve our profession are our competence in our profession and in the in the educational program that we're delivering. If we're going to survive so I'm getting their support there. Where we differ are some proposals.

They will support improving instructional leadership. They will support the idea. Encouraging people to come into the profession both by scholarships and fellowships for math and science teachers will in short supply rewarding and supporting those teachers that have talent for example giving them additional responsibilities and paying them additional sums to do that. They'll support measures aimed at upgrading the quality staff development of teachers. But I'm also so advocating another series of changes and that is we have a I think a system where whereby we dismiss teachers who are not competent in place. Scott fair procedures got due process. It's too cumbersome right now it's too burdensome it's too expensive and I'm going to make some recommendations to to make that that those dismissal procedures more flexible. Most teachers are qualified there are some however that are putting children are causing other teachers problems because they're not doing their share of the work and are giving the whole system a black eyes. So we've

really got to do something about every other profession has addressed the problem of quality and been willing to bite the bullet on self discipline we've got to do the same thing in our profession also. And I'm just trying to come up with a workable procedure whereby we can keep fair procedure and yet do something about the incompetence that you made some headlines yourself just in the last few days in which there were 7000 teachers tested for credentials. And prospective teachers or prospective teachers I should say tested for credential in the figure 62 percent only 62 percent passed all three tests and only 29 percent of the minorities who were candidates for credentials passed the test. Since the California system is going to be 50 percent minority very soon 50 percent of the student body will be minorities. How do you then hope to get more minority teachers involved when they are still doing performing badly on these tests. Well the real question is if you want minority children to succeed they've got to be taught by teachers who are qualified. They have a shot at the jobs you're talking about they've got they have teachers and no math and

no writing and they know how to read. So I have that's why we set that at high levels. I had the responsibility under that particular law that just passed setting the level for for a passing score you had to pass all three tests you had to pass math you had to pass reading you had to pass writing. So we set it at 70 percent cut off for reading. We said at 67 after sent for writing and we said it's 65 percent for mathematics now. You can take these tests again and a lot of people this is a broad group that took at 7000 people some juniors some seniors some fifth year candidates in the schools of education they can take the test again. I would hope that they do take the tests again and the troubles me that they're that we've got Where do I see more minority I sure what I mean I'm going this I'd like to see 100 percent of those teachers pass this test I'm not out to keep anybody from teaching. But you're torn between assuring quality for our students and people who put some time and effort into trying to get a credential they can take the test again. We are I'm recommending to the teacher licensing and preparation commission that if a person

passes a section of the test the writing section of the reading section or both. They don't have to take that over again they just have to keep concentrating on the one that they flunk until they can get by it. And I think we'll see those figures go up considerably because as people understand this is what they have to do to get a credential. As people give this test before you take your fifth year in education as they start to concentrate in the in the. In the schools on these areas then I think we'll see more people we're just seeing the neglect of 10 years and some of these basic skills coming out and in teacher cases coming out of law school cases coming out across the board. Let me read the plight of a young science and math teacher from Huntington Beach because he articulated very well for many science and math teachers a very conscientious young teacher whom I met and this is from a speech he made. I'm fully aware that money is not a cure all or panacea for the problems of education but it helps new textbooks equipment computers and in some cases upgrading of worn out facilities are desperately needed. In my classroom I'm teaching out of a textbook written in the 1950s

and and brought in one thousand sixty nine. My total budget for each student in this advanced science class is $2. $2 to $3 although in the past year there have been slight improvements in funding the effect of inflation in the number of students in the classroom have wiped out any real increase with books costing 12 to $20 it is next to impossible to get new textbooks and therefore the students must rely on my lectures from textbook that I have purchased with my own funds. Speaking Out of desperation out of the station what would you say this young science and math teacher. Well one of the things we're proposing in this legislative package is an increase in funds for both elementary schools and high school textbooks. They have been neglected he's right. Mr. Johnson often I should say and they are very very conscientious. It's shameful. California is at the bottom line textbook. The use of utilization of textbooks and and the recency of purchase we've got to do something about that we're going to propose that we also have got to do something to attract and reward some of the math and science teachers and

especially beginning teachers we're going to have a proposal which puts in a true probationary period for teachers coming into the system and couples that to raising the minimum levels for beginning teacher the average level in California $13000 people can go become a secretary and earn more than that and we're just not attracting the kind of personnel into teaching that we need to. So if pacifically How would you try to increase the number of science and math teachers for example which there seems to be a shortage. Several things one is you better entry salaries. Number two is you pay additional sums of money for additional responsibility get them to teach during the summer or teach an additional course and earn more money or pay them for doing curricular work or staff development work which is tried in other states and other other cities and that's where fellowships and scholarships to get people to come into the system we've got. As I said a whole series of five or six proposals which will be making to the legislature to try to attract and to hold some of our better teachers some of our schools that are more that are more wealthy than others have microprocessor the

microprocessor so their students can get exposed to computer science other schools about half the schools have video cassette technology for example about half of them. What about the other half that do not or the many who do not have a video cassette playback capability. What about the schools that don't have computer and micro processors to teach their students what do you intend to do by that. Well we need a we need a policy an overall plan for the introduction of technology in the California schools run in the hardware area so that we make sure that all students in all schools have the capability. Some of the computer companies are interested in donating a quite a large number of microcomputers so we should be taking advantage of that. And from there make sure that we make to get these into the hardware into the class. You have in you what you advocate that you have I think that's important and it's everybody should have facility with computers they should understand word processing on computers that's where most of the jobs I think the figure I saw was 60 percent of jobs by 1990. You're going to have to have keyboard facilities at least a computer at what they call a computer literacy

bitter friendly that's now we're going to be we're proposing that as part of our requirements. But there's some other areas we have to address number. We do not have good software in the computer areas they're using computers expensive machines basically for drill and practice. We need software development. The creative thinking that as you said earlier was a hallmark of these jobs. Computers are naturals for that. If we can get the software developed and number three it's a tremendous training. Backlog if we're going to get teachers for themselves to be familiar with computers and as a superintendent the best experience our teachers have the renewal experiences we had to bring computer center in our district they they were in another district we offered him space and they offered a program for our teachers. About 70 percent of our teachers ran through that program that they like they like the experience and then they took back with them the ability in a lot of them then put in programs in their particular classroom so that training is also very essential. You say you have concern about the minority the large number of minorities. Are you a friend or a foe of

bilingual education. How would you describe yourself. Well I'm for bilingual education that if that helps make the transition to English as quickly as possible I'm for those. That kind of support of the program. Some children do need assistance but our programs have been too narrowly conceived in my my point of view they need to be more flexible at the site level. We have to hold them more accountable for results results of getting on into the regular program. And we've got to make sure that they're tailored to the individual needs of students. And so there are some changes that I'm going to be recommending both especially at the state regulatory level. We have exit criteria now there to focus finally they don't let people out of the programs and so you've got these large numbers of children trapped in bilingual programs who could be making irregular programs but just can't get out. And I think that's that's unfortunate. There's been a trend toward Too many parents because the schools are so so upsetting to them to take their children out of public schools and put them into private schools what would you do to reverse that trend.

Well if we are successful in upgrading the quality of our schools you'll see people coming back in the public schools right now 89 percent of the children the state attend the public schools and so we sink or swim in our well we educate them in our district for example. We were losing substantial numbers of students to the private schools. We worked on quality we raised expectations we put in the basic courses we did something about discipline. We were at the end of that we were getting people coming back from the private schools into the public schools. People believe in public education they don't want to spend the extra money necessary for private schools. If we deliver the quality they'll come right on that note we're going to have to move along I want to thank you very much for a very stimulating discussion and very and closing discussion on an enormous problem. I think everyone shares with me in wishing you good fortune in such a vital part. I think I live a slice from here. There's been a special broadcast for public television with Bill Clinton and one of the construction. I'm Jim Cooper.

Thanks for being with. Us.