The California Teachers Association has issued early data pointing to positive results from a eight-year, $3 billion program for low-performing schools that the union fought hard to create and is fighting equally hard to preserve. Just last week – four months into the fiscal year and after some dragged-out battles – the Assembly passed a bill securing full funding for another year.
I have been a skeptic of the program– the Quality Education Investment Act — since it was created in 2006, although I applaud the CTA for going to the mat on behalf of low-income schools. I have had two problems with QEIA:
- It benefited only a third of the approximately 1,500 schools in the bottom two deciles of Academic Performance Index (API) scores.
- It also committed the bulk of the money to class-size reduction, even though smaller classes, while popular with teachers and parents, is the most expensive school reform, with largely unproven results. The CTA disagrees with most researchers on this key point and cites studies showing gains from smaller classes. (Read more and comment on this post)
- The Educated Guess » Ed groups ask Duncan to reject waiver
- The Educated Guess » Ed groups ask Duncan to reject waiver