Senator Bob Huff
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 7, 2014
CONTACT: Bill Bird @ 916-651-4029
Huff Introduces “School Choice Week” Resolution
Nationwide Celebration Shines Spotlight on Need for Effective Education Options
SACRAMENTO: Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) has introduced new legislation to commemorate National School Choice Week in California. Senate Resolution (SR) 22 highlights schools, teachers, parents and students from across the nation to rally for effective education opportunities that benefit all children.
More than 5,500 events will take place across all fifty states to raise awareness for school choice during National School Choice Week, which takes place January 26 through February 1. The event spotlights all types of positive education options — from traditional public schools, to public magnet and charter schools, to private schools, to virtual schools, to home schooling. The effort brings students, parents, educators, community leaders, and elected officials together to cheer for school choice where it exists and demand it where it does not.
“As Juan Williams and Condoleezza Rice have both put it, school choice is the civil rights issue of our time,” said Senator Huff. “School choice benefits all students, especially low-income families who often lack the resources to move to a better neighborhood or turn to private schools. Allowing parents and students to choose what school programs fit their needs benefits everyone.”
The highlight of National School Choice Week will feature a cross-country, whistle-stop train and motor coach tour that will span 3,800 miles and feature special events in 14 cities, including stops in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Senator Huff will also screen a special presentation of the film “We The Parents” at 11:00 AM on Friday, January 31st in Room 3191 at the State Capitol.
According to the National School Choice Week website:
“National School Choice Week provides an unprecedented opportunity, every January, to shine a spotlight on the need for effective education options for all children. Planned by a diverse and nonpartisan coalition of individuals and organizations, National School Choice Week features special events and activities that highlight support for school choice programs and proposals.”
Senator Huff has authored numerous successful school choice related bills during his legislative tenure, including the nationally recognized “Parent Trigger” law, open enrollment, school districts of choice and charter school funding. He was named Elected Leader of the Year by the California Charter Schools Association in 2012 and has also been presented with the prestigious Golden Apple Award by California Parents for Public Virtual Education.
Senator Huff serves as the Senate Republican Leader and represents the 29th Senate District covering portions of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino Counties. Follow Senator Huff on Twitter at @bobhuff99.
Huff loves himself some Michelle Rhee.
The answer to public education is not to privatize it and create a two tier system, one for the haves and one for the have nots. The answer is to determine why it is failing to actually do what it is supposed to do and fix the problem, not make the problems worse.
If “private education” were so great, then you would see dramatic differences between the outcomes from those that attend the best private institutions and those that attend public ones. But when you look at the numbers based on the most common standardized test that graduates from both public and private take (the SAT/ACT) the numbers don’t reflect that a private education is any better statistically than a public one. What they do reflect is that the greatest thing leading to inequality in education is financial where-with-all of the family.
Since we can’t make everyone wealthy, a better question, rather than privatization of the system, is “when did the system work best and why?” That has an answer. It worked best before it was made into a assembly line 13 step manufacturing system (the manufacture of a “student”). Thus, the answer lies not in privatization, but in going back and determining what worked in the past and bringing those techniques and process back so that the system will work again.
When you “school choice” is which assembly line rather than which education process it’s a very false choice.
[Disclaimer: I am co-author of a patent on Computer Adaptive Diagnostics for Education.]
[Since we can’t make everyone wealthy, a better question, rather than privatization of the system, is “when did the system work best and why?”]……… Hmmmmmm
The the system worked best prior to communist’s, Jerry Brown, signing laws to give teachers and public school employees (SB 160, 1975), as well as UC and CSU employees (AB 1091, 1978), the right to bargain collectively
So what are you gone do about it you iLeft moron mongoloid?
I say privatize, to get education out of the hands of the unions.
Unions suck. I mean who the hell wants to work for a decent wage, workplace safety, get paid sick time or vacations (all brought to you by the unions you so dislike). That’s just for the owners. If you are a wage slave, just be glad you have a friggin job and that the owners don’t replace your butt.
On to the actual topic. The system did work and it worked well. Education was done in an environment where it wasn’t a 13 step assembly line program. Where students acted as mentors teaching and re-enforcing what they had learned. Where teachers were actually a prized profession in the community. It worked exceptionally well. Then somewhere along the line people decided that the management of education was more important than the delivery of education and the system was changed and modeled after Henry Fords assembly line. It went from craftsmanship to assembly production. In doing so it removed all the things that made getting an education, educational.
Talk to any K-12 teacher and what is one of their top five concerns? “Managing the classroom”. And at lest three of the other five will be sub-categories of that topic. That isn’t “educating” and it never has been.
The funny part is that these K-12 teachers aren’t just in public schools, they are in privates as well. So what does “privatization” bring to the table? NOT A DAMN THING. The problems are still in “managing the classroom” not in educating the students. We aren’t teaching, we are managing the assembly process. And even in manufacturing they found out that the assembly-line model is ripe for sub par production. That’s why there were all those “quality initiatives” to get better at making a quality outcome. The result was a change in manufacturing processes around the world, changes that helped make a better and higher quality product. One of the key changes was JIT (Just In Time) manufacturing. This one key change acknowledged “out of place” work was one of the key failures of the line, and that when something was pushed down the line and OOPW was done to it, the quality suffered. Well there is no difference between OOPW and the failures we see in social promotion that is the hallmark of a well run school. Yet neither public or private education has bothered to change the dynamics that create OOPW. Students routinely get promoted even though they are missing key components of the foundation on which they will need to build future learning. Because the assembly line must move and whether they get an education or not is NOT the important issue, but that they move through the system along with everyone else at the same time in an orderly fashion IS the key to todays educational system (both public and private).
Unions have NOTHING to do with this problem. It’s a management problem. And all the standardized testing and other rigamarole won’t “solve” the problem because it doesn’t address the problem (or even the symptoms).
The question was: “when did the system work best and why?”
The answer is: before Jerry Brown’s, (SB 160, 1975), and (AB 1091, 1978).
The rest of your comment is irrelevant iLeft crapola and communistic propaganda.