Credit: Alison Yin/EdSource
Last year, I got Covid on Christmas Eve and had to isolate until I was negative. Insanely bored and sick as a dog, I took a large dose of NyQuil and fell asleep watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Carol” back to back. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a strange, ghostly figure at the end of my bed. “Get the hell out of here. I’ve got Covid!” I yelled.
“It’s OK. I’m already dead,” said the figure. “I am the Ghost of California’s Education Past.”
The Ghost looked eerily familiar, like someone I’d met a long time ago in Sacramento. Before I could escape, he grabbed me by the ear and transported us to a dark, windowless room with a glowing screen that read “California’s Education Past.”
For the next 45 minutes, he detailed a long list of policy accomplishments from education standards to charter school laws to massive investments in teacher professional development and school improvement. Then he showed in tedious detail how they’d accelerated student achievement and closed achievement gaps from the ’90s to the 2000s. Before I could raise my hand for the expected Q&A, he shut off the projector and transported me back to my bed. I quickly fell back asleep with visions of the PowerPoint dancing in my head.
A few minutes later, I opened my eyes and was startled to see another figure leaning over me. From her massive name tag, I surmised that she was the Ghost of California’s Education Present.
I sighed, expecting another PowerPoint about learning loss, the Local Control Funding Formula, community schools, et cetera, et cetera. Before I could ask about skipping to the next Ghost, she whisked me out of the room.
Suddenly, we were flying over Palo Alto and descending deep into the bowels of Stanford University. We entered a strange hexagonal room filled with serious-looking men transfixed by a glowing orb that flashed the letters O.P.E.B. Confused by the sight, I asked the ghost if this was some new diabetes drug that they’d created that could be repurposed for weight loss. She shook her head. “Then what is it?” I asked.
“Only they know,” she said, taking me by the hand. Seconds later, we were flying over Sacramento and descending into the headquarters of the California Teachers Association. We glided into a hidden room in the catacombs below the basement where a wise-looking old man sat at a table, ringing a small bell. I shot a quizzical look at the Ghost.
“He does that whenever someone starts working for a charter school,” she said.
I asked whether it was because they’d become angels. The old man smiled widely and said, “No, it’s because they left. Or even better, never came.”
The next thing I knew, I was back in bed. I didn’t fall asleep this time. I knew who was coming. Sure enough, a skeletal figure wearing a vintage Raiders hoodie entered, threw me under his arm and transported me into the future. He pointed his bony finger at California’s education landscape, and to my sorrow, it looked just like the present. Teachers didn’t get the support they needed. Most students couldn’t do math or read at grade level. There were dozens of random programs created by ambitious politicians and philanthropists. On and on. Once I was suitability depressed, the Ghost took me back to the present.
When I awoke, it was Christmas Day. I made a cup of tea and contemplated the meaning of my strange visitations. The past was easy to interpret because of the PowerPoint. The future was a predictable extension of the status quo. The present was more challenging. I Googled OPEB and learned that it meant Other Post-Employment Benefits — typically extra health insurance for retirees. Apparently, a group of Stanford researchers and their political friends believed that reforming OPEB would free up money for education and other programs. Certainly important, but more like the random stuff CFOs complained about after drinking too many mai tais at an accounting convention.
As for the old man ringing the bell, why would CTA be excited about educators leaving for charter schools? Didn’t they despise charter schools?
But as I thought about the present day in other states, it started to make sense. Policymakers in Mississippi and Colorado hadn’t spent the past 20 years focusing on finance issues or charter schools. They’d prioritized teaching and learning, especially in reading. They’d passed major legislation like the Colorado READ Act and supported their districts to change classroom instruction. A broad range of political, business and philanthropic leaders drove these changes. Essentially, they’d taken a page from California’s old playbook.
In the meantime, California had tossed that playbook out the window. Our political and philanthropic class had lost interest in teaching. Our business community was either AWOL or focused on tangential issues like OPEB. Our reformers spent disproportionate attention and money on charters. I understood their rationale — charters were a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of low-income students and students of color in dysfunctional school districts.
But, as the Ghost revealed, there was another version of this story where California’s most talented and potentially disruptive educators took their talents outside the traditional system. Rather than transforming that system from the outside as had been promised, the charter strategy had atomized their political power; a dependence on billionaire philanthropists had given opponents an easy target in every political campaign. No wonder the old man was happily ringing his bell.
Suddenly, it all made sense. More money for schools — like the money from the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) or OPEB – can help kids. But only if that money funds long-term statewide initiatives to improve teaching and learning. School models like charters or community schools can help improve student outcomes. But only if state and local leaders are helping their teachers and every teacher in California learn proven instructional strategies.
The takeaway from my ghostly night before Christmas was clear. To fix our education system, California needs to go back to the future.
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Arun Ramanathan is the former CEO of Pivot Learning and the Education Trust—West.
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