The situation in the sphere of the education improvement leaves much space for the development as far as k-12 education is concerned. The researchers of this field expressed their concern about standards of K-12 teaching. Despite the introduction of the reforms into the K-12 education in Florida that considerably advanced the academic standard, the reforms are crucial for the whole California due to its diverse population and the growing requirements of the parents (Lips, 2). To my mind, the most effective reforms turned out to be financial reform, the reform on improvement of the teaching stuff quality and implementation of student testing policy. These innovations pointed out the main weaknesses of k-12 education in California.
The introduction of the school financial reform started in 1971 when the Court decided that the contrast between lower class pupils’ districts and the wealthy districts is enormous. That is why, the education financing would compensate this gap and improve the attitude to the educational process (Carrol, 4). The reform was quite appropriate since that not only ameliorated the teaching level; it also involved more pupils into the educational process and enlarged the material and educational base of the teaching institutions. Secondly, since the resources become equally available to both low- and high-wealth regions of California, it broadened the possibility for poor students. Thirdly, the finance schooling reform greatly contributed to the problem of taxes imposing. So far, the basis of k-12 funds was 60 % of local property taxes whereas the state provided 34 % only (Timar, 4). Currently, the financial system radically changed the tax ratio in favor of the population. Thus, 67 % of funding is directed from the state whereas the local taxation has significantly changed so that the money allocation is mostly controlled by the government but not by the local authority (Timar, 5). Finally, due to the fact that the population of California comprises a considerable part of immigrants, the centralization of the finance funding lessened the limitation for the immigrants and highered an average educational level in the district as they mostly belonged to the middle working layer of society. In addition, the finance reform created the united the fund for k-12 education thus establishing more incentives for the study and increasing the class size. As it can be viewed, the intervention of finance reform in the sphere of k-12 education development improved not only the level of academic achievements but also social status of poor and immigrant students.
It goes without saying that the improvement of teaching stuff and the advancement of academic curriculum greatly deposited to the development K-12 schooling. First of all, the teaching skills do not presuppose the profound knowledge of material only but also imply the knowledge of pedagogy and the appropriate competence in treating the children of different age categories. Regarding that, pedagogy is crucial for all qualification levels of teaching and PhDs in particular since teacher should be aware of the challenges and opportunities the children may face in school. In this respect, they must comprehend the educational policy of local administration and follow the universally accepted goals of educational process (National Research Council, 23).
Based on the above, it is obvious the improving teacher competence is the most crucial factor that affects how well the students do in the classroom. Therefore, there emerged the necessity of attracting and retaining of high-quality teaching stuff (Lips, 12). The increase of teacher professionalism greatly encouraged the students for getting high scores in different disciplines since qualified teacher have been always bright example for their students. As it can be seen, provides that teacher rewarding indirectly influence the students’ achievement results and process of teaching itself. That unconventional approach changed the outlook on learning. In a whole, the retention strategies positively influenced the scheduling and broadened the opportunities for planning their lessons in their own way. The introduction of this reform also affected the curriculum planning thus inviting a great deal innovations in the class conducting. It becomes obvious that improving teacher quality is closely connected with student performance quality proving the necessity of the introduction of that reform. It should be also stressed that a matter of teacher recruitment is also of urgent for 12-grade education to conform to the existed standard and to improve them in future.
Next, the academic curriculum compiling is also of great importance for the united k-12 education. Hence, the introduction of innovated score-testing programs improved the state achievement results (Lips, 9). In particular, this reform proved the increase student achievement by the invitation of the modernized accountability system accepted in 1999, in Florida (Lips, 10). The reform supported a better monitoring of the students’ performance in different fields of study. These programs also allowed the children to insert more options in choosing the school thus raising the student performance as well. Thus, the accountability program promoted a higher control of the score index that was highly welcomed in school (Carroll, 8). The main advantage of this program consisted in granting of extra possibilities for school to obtain some monetary and non-monetary awards. Such opportunity not only encourages the development of the quality of study but also enlarges the material base of the educational establishment. Therefore, the accountability enhancing is a great merit for k-12 education and other types of educational planning.
Further on, the consistent reform of the curriculum sophistication could be also assessed as the most effective insertion to the k-12 education improvement. To be more exact, the alignment of curriculum fostered the political and bureaucratic procedures and development of test papers for the students to indicate their readiness for the college level work (Furshman et al, 216). For example, the K-12 California Standards Test provides the teachers with the information about the actual student intelligence and skills. Arising from this, the reform gives opportunities to analyze the efficiency of this k-12 education in comparison with higher educational institutions. Moreover, the experience of alignment in California served as the example for other states to apply this reform and to resolve the problems pertaining to the social class problems and working class welfare.
As a conclusion, it should be pointed out that every state has its own standard of teaching from kindergarten to the 12 grade. Therefore, k-12 education in California is not an exception since it needs a constant reforming. In this respect, the most successful changes that appeared here is the finance reform, the teaching quality improvement, and the accountability program introduction are the most important reforms that promoted the k-12 education to the upper educational level in California. Moreover, it gave rise to the invitation of the same reforms in other states that ameliorated the 12-grade educational system in a whole.
Works Cited
Carroll Stephen J California’s k-12 public schools: how are they doing? US: Rand Corporation, 2005.
Fuhrman, Susan, & Mosher, Fritz The State of Educational Policy Research UK: Routledge, 2007
Lips Den, & Ladner Matthew “Demography Defeated: Florida’s Reforms and their Lessons for the Nation” Goldwater Institute vol. 227, 2008.
National Research Council Attracting PhDs to K-12 Education: a demonstration program for science US: National Academic Press, 2002.
Timar, Thomas. “How California Funds K-12 Education”. University of California. 2006. Web.