Education Reform

They were condemned by the U.S. Senate and lambasted by presidential hopefuls, and gave radio talk-show bombardier Rush Limbaugh a field day. (The acerbic broadcast host said they should be flushed down the toilet.) Now, the national history standards, which are to guide the teaching of American and world history in the nation's elementary and secondary schools, are back from the drawing board. And, judging from the final version to be released today, the critics for the most part were heeded.

A bill that would wipe out the state's 20-year-old approach to educating the nearly 1.3 million California students who do not speak English fluently was endorsed Wednesday by the Republican-dominated Assembly Education Committee. Authored by Brooks Firestone (R-Los Olivos), the bill would scrap state regulations favoring instruction in a child's home language and replace them with a potentially wide-open system in which school districts could try a variety of instructional methods.

Clearing the way for a massive overhaul of the special education system in the Los Angeles Unified School District, a federal judge on Monday approved the negotiated settlement of a class-action lawsuit. "I will sign this decree today . . . so that youngsters who need our attention and love will get that as quickly as possible," said Senior U.S. District Judge Laughlin Waters at the end of a 2 1/2-hour hearing Monday morning.

The Annenberg Foundation is announcing today a $4.3-million challenge grant to inject arts education into elementary and secondary school reform. The grant will be matched in part locally by the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, the arm of the Getty Museum committed to disseminating arts instruction techniques.

In response to petitions signed by 3,000 teachers across California, the state Board of Education on Thursday added three members to a panel rewriting guidelines for math instruction to provide balance between so-called "reformers" and those who favor a more traditional approach.

At the podium in an Oklahoma City banquet room filled with 400 school board members and superintendents from the nation's largest cities, Albert Shanker is charging headlong into his favorite topic. The longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers rocks on his toes. His fingers dance in the air. One minute, he folds his hands over his spreading paunch. The next minute, he shakes them gently, as if he were sprinkling ideas like drops from a cloud.

One month after Culver City voters overwhelmingly passed a $40-million school bond, district officials are pushing ahead with a plan to build 29 new classrooms at four elementary schools by Sept. 1. District officials said the $5-million project, funded partially by the bonds, will allow them to accommodate increasing enrollment and to continue participating in statewide efforts to reduce class size.

Residents who live within the boundaries of one of the county's top-performing school districts say they are wary of experimental educational programs, according to a school district survey released late Tuesday. While the survey shows "a generally positive backdrop" of public opinion regarding the 21,700-student district, Gary Lawrence said, residents believe that Irvine Unified is too eager to embrace new educational methods.

Swiftly taking advantage of new state grants intended to decrease class sizes, the Irvine Unified School District has become perhaps the first in the state to launch a plan limiting classes to 20 in all first grades by next week. "I have not heard of any school district that has schools ready to go next week," said Dan Edward, the governor's spokesman in the education office. "I would say with certainty that they are among the first to get this into action. . . . That's very quick."

School administrator Barbara Winars breaks out her calculator and begins to punch in seven-digit dollar figures. The hectic numbers-crunching that has filled her life for the past few weeks is a complex mathematical nightmare, but also, she knows, the start of a dream come true: limiting class sizes in lower grades to 20 students. "It's a massive undertaking," said Winars, the Westminster district's assistant superintendent.