I get it: spend more of our taxpayer dollars for another state commission. Will people draw a per diem for “serving” on this thing?
I get the goal is to divert more of our tax dollars to low achieving districts.
Oakland school district has had trouble for four decades despite huge funding, numerous leaders and even prior state takeover. More of our money will not solve this.
After Covid era state dollars awarded to help school districts, news reported state auditor said few districts had accounted for the lavish dollars! Little follow up, naturally.
This will likely be more of the same.
Little accountability. A LOT of our money.
I predicted fleeing to private education from CA public schools years ago, even on this forum (!) - and for multitude of reasons. I was not educated in private schools, by the way. But do see logic in them now - and for leaving this state.
There is also a concerted effort by state bureaucrats to install unnecessary, incorrect and offensive ethnics studies and to dumb down Mathematics education in CA public schools in recent years. Syndicated columns have discussed ethnic studies controversy - this isn’t just my little opinion.
How about sticking to a coherent, straightforward curriculum of reading, writing, Mathematics, removing politically biased content which aims to mold young minds for political reasons. Yes, it IS possible to teach History, Social Studies without adding ridiculous concocted emphasis on what should be minor points. This country was not founded in racism.
They got rid of the easy CAHSEE high school exit exam for political reasons, to cater to low achievers. Great, now there is NO basic bar to demonstrate worthiness to hold a California high school diploma! One could take it three times and get free tutoring over summer fand students still couldn’t pad this easy test! So they should have been failed out of high school. This is a FACT.
- now there is social promotion.
Getting rid of standardized tests creates murkiness and removes objectivity. So incompetence can be covered up. When it refers to UC admissions, this becomes a big deal to millions.

Sadly Anon seems to be right on this. Another tidbit in this story is that attendance seems to be a problem in certain districts. Rather than just ignoring it and handing over the money anyway, maybe this commission should look into the causes of and solutions for absenteeism.

Declining enrollment has been studied in other areas and reported on in NYT, among other places.

Older teens had to work and care for siblings during the pandemic, and now don't want to go back.

The wealthy transferred their kids to privates if the could to get in-person education, since remote was such a disaster for many kids.

The parents delayed kinder or TK to wait for classrooms to return to normal.

The borders were actually closed for almost 2 years to prevent covid transmission, so far fewer immigrant kids from around the world.

Republicans & Fox News trashed the value of college and therefore everyone, leading to fewer people valuing education.

There - don't pay for a commission or study.

We should continually remind teachers that if it weren't for all the crazy bureaucratic bloat, we are currently spending around $400k per year per classroom of 25 kids. [Those per year numbers don't include capital expenses either, so things like the building and room are 'free' in that framing.] Most teachers find that fact both surprising and jarring, and wonder where the heck the money went... cause it's certainly not getting to them or their classroom needs.

We'd be halfway toward rectifying our shockingly poor outcomes (which pre-date Covid) if we spent our money thinking first about parents, teachers, and kids. Committees, politics, admins upon asst admins, superintendents upon asst superintendents in their 31 flavors, layers of bureaucracy passing funds up and down and around, county offices, state and regional curriculum committees ... decades of proven ineffectiveness...