In the Golden state, leaden school scores

When she looks out at the classes she teaches at Los Angeles High School here, Cynthia Augustine, sees students from Russia, Mongolia, Ghana, Sudan, Korea, Philippines, and Thailand.

That doesn't include Spanish speakers from 12 Central and South American countries, whose numbers have risen dramatically in the past decade.

The range of languages is one reason, she says, why the nation's most populous state is having trouble providing the top-quality education for which it was known a few decades ago.

The state is home to one of every eight US children school and spends half its yearly budget - $50 billion - on education. Yet a recent RAND study found that on most measures from funding to academic achievement, California has slipped from No. 1 in the late 1960s to below 40th today.

"If you ask why California schools have gone from the nation's best to among its worst, I would say the influx of non-English speaking immigrants tops the list of reasons," says Ms. Augustine, a 30-year teaching veteran.

An array of languages and cultures is just one factor behind the Golden State's classroom challenge. Debate on the problem, in fact, is now revisiting paths well worn during previous reform attempts in the late 1980s and mid-1990s - as the state tries to right itself. Experts point to a web of interrelated causes. The 1978 Proposition 13 tax revolt redirected funding and local control for schools. Per-pupil spending has declined, enrollment has been rising, teacher salaries are low, and class sizes are high despite a high-profile attempt to reduce them in recent years.

"We have America's biggest and most diverse student population, 1 of 4 which is learning English," says Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction. "Forty percent are from low socioeconomic conditions and some of our districts have to shut down for six weeks in winter because parents move to the Mexico crop fields as migrant workers."

Among RAND's most disturbing findings: Since 1990, average reading and math scores for fourth and eighth graders ranked California above only Mississippi and Louisiana; 15 percent of the state's 287,000 teachers are without full credentials; teacher pay falls below the national average (adjusted for cost of living); and despite a major initiative to reduce class sizes in K-3 grades in 1997, the state still has the nation's second-highest student-to-teacher ratio

"California has a whole host of systemic reasons why it has not coped well with the increasing challenges, over the years," says Stephen Carroll, author of the RAND study. "We have a tendency to try quick fixes.... We have not properly analyzed how very large and complicated our system is."

Pumping up the state's school system by sending "more money to the classroom" was a Top 10 priority campaign pledge by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was elected governor in 2003. But his administration is facing a $9 billion budget gap in his second year so the governor has been forced to make across-the-board cuts.

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