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Thank you Mr. President Mitchell. I did want to speak to Mr. Jones’ motion, and to just say in no way does the blueprint that we recommended, in my opinion, represent any type of lowering of standards. In fact I appreciate, I listened very carefully when Glee Johnson, whom I really respect, three weeks ago was here and she came up in opposition to the blueprint as she did today. I can guess who asked the question: Yvonne. Does this in anyway represent a diminishing of standards? And Glee’s response, was in her opinion, was no it does not. I’m sure Glee will correct me. And then further, Mr. Jones, I would like rhetorically to ask-in your profession, which you’re the expert in, if someone’s not meeting their thresholds or quotas or guidelines in terms of helping us with insurance, I don’t think you just raise the bar, would be my sense, without some additional assistance, without some guidance and without spending some time which requires some resources on your part, and I really think that’s where we are today.

I want to echo comments that have been made up here already today. The testimony was very high quality, and it’s some of the best I’ve seen in my six years here and I wanted to thank everyone for coming up. I also noticed that I think there may have been one person representing the professional educational community, the real, quote ‘Yvonne practitioners’ who was opposed to the blueprint. Business community, various relationships connections to the governor, and that’s fair, were lined up in support of mandatory algebra in eighth grade. But I thought, it was quite, something I hadn’t really thought about, I thought it was quite telling that the professional educators were here in support of the blueprint and not in support of the governor’s suggestion. And so if I miscounted on that, I’ll have to stand corrected. But I did make some notes starting last night when I was a recipient of the governor’s letter really less than 24-hours ago, and made some extensive notes based on the testimony today. I need to say, right up front, that I am quite disappointed and distressed at really this last minute intervention from the governor. Clearly he has that right, but I got to tell you in my six years over here, serving with two governors I have never seen a last minute approach like that to this board. Really I’m afraid that we have left a lot of the key players throughout the state out of the discussion and dialogue that needs to be addressed. Clearly there has not been adequate public notice for an issue of this magnitude. I also have to state that even though we have been discussing it here amongst us for the last several months, we know that the governor never took the time, or perhaps wasn’t aware of it [but] I don’t see how that’s possible, to weigh in until he did so less than 24-hours ago. So it’s really quite distressing that he would forward a proposal like this in a letter page, a page in a half letter that will have significant impact on literally tens of thousands of students in our state, without proper notification. Without making sure that we received adequate input from our colleagues, from teachers, students and parents that really did not have the opportunity to engage in this discussion more fully.

Now to the merits. I have serious concerns with the merits of the motion that is currently on the table. I want to ask the board to exercise your independence and strongly recommend to you to reject the mandate that’s before us for all eighth graders to take algebra within this time period without also offering any additional support for our school districts and schools to successfully implement and make what really is a major policy change. Now the governor was right in his letter when he pointed out that we can all be very proud of our accountably model and the algebra graduation requirement. And he’s right that he has held high standards. I worked closely with him on high school exit exams for example and he has maintained high standards throughout for all students. He’s right to say that we have more students taking algebra; Dave Long the second speaker today said the same thing. Just for background, when I was in the legislature I supported the Poochigian bill that required algebra in high school. I think you know that I wrote the law for the high school exit exam, that’s part of our high standards, and I have opposed every exemption that my friends in the legislature have written.

We have significantly increased, with the help of many people in this room, the a through g requirements in career technical education. We had 5 1/2 years ago 300 a through g classes in this state that were a through g. Today we are at 6,000. That is a significant step forward in terms of rigor and challenging curriculum in these classes. I’m also a supporter of the a through g legislation that Senator Alarcón introduced several years ago. I’m not sure where the governor was on that but I was a strong supporter. I do believe that with enough support, with resources, all students can succeed in algebra in eighth grade. But without additional support, without increased resources, without that increased educational infrastructure, quite frankly we are setting more students up for disappointment and failure.

But what I found really interesting in the letter that the governor sent was what he didn’t say. If he had consulted with an eighth grade teacher, if he had taken time to talk with a middle school principal or a school district superintendent or reviewed the data that this board has access to—and I’m not sure the governor does [have access to this data] in his defense, or his competent staff—I believe that they would have come to a different conclusion because this is a group that knows. Yes, we have more students taking algebra. That’s clear, that was stated, and that’s a benefit. However, let me tell you what hasn’t been said yet today, I’m not sure the governor is aware of. Proficiency has not increased, proficiency has not increased. Our system simply has much more work to do to put in place the necessary tools to ensure that every child really is ready to participate and succeed in this rigorous, challenging course. Now today, you’ve heard our professional educators, and I quote Yvonne again, the practitioners who came up here today throughout the state stated their concerns. And again our professional educators, a couple sitting up here, have made decisions—I have the numbers for their school—have made decisions in terms of how many eighth grade students they selected. That Jonathon and Yvonne selected how many you have chosen to put in general mathematics. You could put 100% of our students today in algebra, and you have chosen for professional reasons to not. I respect those right there, your decisions to have students in your general math, to put students in general math. And I have looked for 9th grade, you have. That even though they know there is a negative implication for schools in our accountability system, so I commend you on those decisions that you’ve made. And for roughly half the eighth grade population as has deemed by our professional teachers, principals, our charter schools and parents to be ready for algebra, a disturbingly low 23% are proficient or advanced on what now amounts to the 7th grade standards. And that was in part what Ruth was asking Deb Sigman about. So 23% of our students are proficient on general math 7th grade standards. When we disaggregate this data even further we also find disturbing achievement gap issues for African Americans in general math. In general math, proficient and above is 13% and for Hispanics today its16%. In fact if you want to look even further, look at all eighth grade students taking both algebra 1 and general mathematics. It’s less than 12% of California Hispanic students are proficient in the eighth grade. Less than 12%. For African American students today it’s less than 10%.

So how can we look at these numbers and this data and not make inquiries and reform our instructional system? Are we saying that instruction doesn’t really matter? Are we saying that resources don’t really matter? Are we saying that time doesn’t really matter? Just put them all in algebra just put them all in algebra, regardless of what this data tells us. Is that really what this board wants its legacy to be? Because if those instructional strategies really do in fact matter, why has the governor put a proposal before you today that does not address those instructional issues or provide us with any additional assistance?

Let’s not forget, that for reference today and again for some us that aren’t on the school board, there is a budget crisis. We are operating the state of California today without a budget. We meet here today, and you heard from some of the educators, school districts around the state today are cutting programs because of the state budget. I wrote the law for the class size reduction program K-3 and for high school. It got referenced earlier here today. Class sizes next year, I guarantee you, are going to be up. Remediation programs designed to help us close the achievement gap, that has been my focus and I have put my political career on trying to change, many of those remedial programs are going by the wayside because of the budget crisis. We are going to have fewer counselors, fewer nurses, and fewer librarians. We are going to have fewer materials. And summer school has already been adversely impacted. We clearly have fewer students enrolled in all our summer school programs today than one year ago. Clearly, these different strategies need to be put in place if we expect all of our students to be able to succeed in eighth grade algebra.

Now one leading superintendent that I trust and respect and this board has helped him numerous occasions, and he has a waiver on you are going to help him on tomorrow, I hope, told me when we communicated with him that he thought could come close to meeting this expectation; however, he said he would need some additional authority. It would only be able to help his urban district if he could waive the history requirements for some of the lower requirements, or waive the science requirements or he said waive the career technical education programs that he offer, just walk away from those. And the arts and the music and the drama classes in the lower grades, so he would have a longer period of time to really focus on math. So if we are willing to offer that flexibility, I mean this might work. But I think we ought to discuss it and not do it here 24 hours since we received governor’s letter.

These are the kinds of tough choices that school districts are going to be making. If this measure passes there is going to be a firestorm throughout the state when folks in the field hear about what’s happened here tonight. If we are going to put these new expectations on our schools we really do need to have discussions about linking it to appropriate resources and link these higher expectations with necessary resources. We did that with high school exit exams. I’m the one that defended the cornerstone of our accountability system in the California State Supreme Court. And if you recall on some of those issues, it was linked to additional resources and we did the work. It was something like 163 million dollars in remedial work over the last 3 years. The governor has been great [and] the legislature very generous on coming up with additional funds for these students to meets this expectation. If you remember the basic tenets of the lawsuit, it was opportunity to learn. You’re going to hear that a lot if you are deposed. If we are going to put these new expectations on our schools we really do need to have adequate resources and reform. Otherwise, we need to be honest. This motion is going to set our schools up for failure.

We need to ensure that subject matter expertise is available at every grade level. I know this is not the teacher credentialing commission. Maybe some folks up here don’t realize, and I don’t think this is going to be news but it could be, we have a teacher shortage. There is a real teacher shortage in California, and guess what areas the teacher shortage is in? Its in math, it’s in science and special education. And let me take it one step further and probably alienate some of my friends with the teachers association here, some of the teachers today in middle school teaching math do not do a very good job. And they are not adequately trained or prepared. I mean these multi-subject credentials; they simply need additional professional development. They need additional resources. They lack adequate training for these more rigorous classes. We need consistent, high quality standards aligned professional development, and our schools need a minimum amount of time of instructional minutes in the area of math. We cannot expect our students to succeed when we as adults have not yet done our part.

So I understand that some, and it was referenced here earlier today, are suggesting that we really don’t have to worry about the consequences. There is clearly going to be a new administration in Washington before any of this comes to pass. My friends, some of the strongest proponents of the basic tenets of the No Child Left Behind aren’t going anywhere, and they happen to be democrats, friends of mine, members in congress. And they’re the ones, if you think back, that helped write No Child Left Behind. So I think it’s simply unrealistic to think that the new administration is going to waive some of these requirements. So I believe it is quite cynical, really insincere and disingenuous a way of making public policy. It’s risky for our students and our schools to count on the next administration to get us out of this immediate box.

Last thing I wanted to say, a close, something I thought of here today. It’s an analogy to No Child Left Behind. Some of us are critical of some components of No Child Left Behind. And to speak for the entire board, something I don’t do too often, I am going to suggest that we all support the goals of No Child Left Behind. We want every student to be proficient. We want every student to be proficient. However, many of us are also critics of No Child Left Behind. It’s overly prescriptive, it’s one size fits all, it doesn’t recognize the starting line’s not the same for all of our kids. The federal government has done a terrible job providing us with adequate resources. My friends, it’s a parallel path that you are about to embark upon. It’s a parallel path. So the next time you criticize No Child Left Behind I want to invite you to look in the mirror. Again, I urge you to reject this last minute proposal. Please, the president was exactly right with his earlier comments and I am trying my best, I feel very strongly. Please reject this last minute proposal and to approve the blueprint that is before you. Because if we as a state wish to move more students into eighth grade algebra and at a much quicker pace we should discuss publicly, publicly how to best do that and what resources it’s absolutely going to take.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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