By Talia Gerard
Staff Writer
The last education reform made in California was in June of 2013. This infrequency of reform and selectivity of passing legislation has avoided potential problems among those being educated and is a testament to smart politics.
The 2013 reform bill promised to radically alter the financial systems for schools in California. The decision to pass this bill was clearly justified, as it was prompted by multiple years of inadequate state funding for schools.
More recently, in 2013, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have made it more difficult for students to transfer from their local school to an out-of-district school. According to Publicintegrity.org, many were in support of the bill because they thought that this phenomenon detracted from the in-district students’ learning environments, as new students took advantage of their learning resources. Brown made the right decision because a seemingly-prejudicial law like this is bound to cause unnecessary conflicts. If this law were implemented, many students from lower socioeconomic levels would not have the same educational opportunities.
A Georgia law passed in 2010 is an example of a futile reform that only led to tension within the state. In accordance with this law, students in Georgia, regardless of their intelligence or academic ability, were unable to gain admission to public universities because they were undocumented citizens. This also resulted in a lawsuit against the state, which could have been avoided if the Georgian legislators had more foresight. In this case, thoughtless reforms prevented students from being educated effectively and fairly.
Each instance of reform, both vetoed and erroneously implemented, strove to make it more difficult for higher levels of education to be given to certain minority groups. While the reforms are not blatantly prejudiced, they do target issues that significantly impact specific minority groups more so than others. By being more meticulous while approving legislation, California prevented a number of problems stemming from minority marginalization. This legislative selectiveness is what differentiates California from other states such as Georgia in 2010, for the Georgian legislation’s hastiness passing a reform targeting undocumented students was what started the discontent.
It is evident that when state-wide legislation is passed without consideration of its effects on the entire population, the situations created can be detrimental to students and the state. The Georgia law’s skewed focus on an issue of identification, rather than on core educational value, is a representation of the problems that occur when the proper thought is not put into formulating new educational reforms.
The methodical pace of the Californian legislative body limits the problems that could come out of poorly thought-out reforms.
The fact that California has passed few reforms on education in the past few years is positive, and it will likely decrease confusion within the state’s education system. This allows legislators to give more thought to the possible repercussions that new reforms would have when implemented them into the existing system.
Without the unnecessary legislative clutter of constant reform, policies are more easily streamlined and implemented, providing the highest level of effectiveness and the lowest level of possible problems. This continuity provides stability and perspective on what teachers and students should focus on.
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