The Offense of Education's "Defenders"

A recent defense of the disastrous status quo of public education in California by one of its chief perpetrators, and my response.....

The Real Offender:

Guest column: Defending public education in a time of uncertainty

Dr. César Morales Your Turn Ventura County Star March 2025

Public education is facing an unprecedented challenge. As political rhetoric intensifies, the U.S. Department of Education has come under attack, with calls for its elimination shaking the foundation of our nation’s commitment to equitable learning opportunities. Yet, despite these challenges, the focus of Ventura County educators remains unwavering: ensuring the well-being and success of students.

While some may view these attacks as symbolic, the implications are real. The Department of Education plays a crucial role in supporting public schools across the country. It distributes federal resources and helps ensure that our schools are free from discrimination. The formal elimination of the Department of Education would require an act of Congress, which has not yet occurred. However, we cannot ignore the disruptions likely to result from the dismissal of nearly half of the department’s staff.

For now, there is no indication that Ventura County schools will experience an immediate loss of federal revenue. Federal funding accounts for approximately 10% of the total budget for our local schools, supporting services for socioeconomically disadvantaged students, students with special needs, and school meal programs. However, even if the funding remains intact, we anticipate potential delays and bureaucratic hurdles due to staffing reductions and disarray at the federal level. The most at-risk students stand to lose the most from any disruption.

Beyond funding concerns, the weakening of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is particularly troubling. This office serves as a safeguard against discrimination, ensuring that all students are protected under federal law. While California has strong state-level protections in place, not all states do. The erosion of federal oversight threatens to widen educational inequities, particularly for students in marginalized communities.

The current administration is also taking steps that threaten our efforts to create learning environments where all students are welcome and supported. Despite the campaign to turn DEI initiatives into political kryptonite, we must not shy away from their principles. We embrace the diversity of our student body, we strive to ensure equitable access to learning opportunities, and we work to make every child feel included and valued at school. I’m proud that my office recently presented our fifth annual Equity Conference, where 500 of your friends and neighbors from all walks of life came together to support the values that make Ventura County schools so special.

At a time when public education is under scrutiny, our schools need unwavering support from the communities they serve. The narrative around education must shift from one of division to one of shared responsibility and appreciation. We need to reinforce the idea that teaching is not just a profession, but a privilege — one that shapes the future of our society. Strong, compassionate educators and leaders remain essential to guiding our schools through these uncertain times.

Now more than ever, we urge parents, business leaders, and community members to stand in solidarity with our schools to fill the crater of the meteoric attacks on our public education system. Get engaged at your local school sites. Volunteer in classrooms, mentor students, or serve on advisory committees. Your voice and involvement help preserve the programs and opportunities that students rely on every day.

The attacks on public education cannot be allowed to erode the foundation of learning and opportunity in our country. Despite the uncertainty, one thing remains clear: Ventura County’s schools will continue to provide the best possible education for our students, preparing them for bright and successful futures. Public education is a cornerstone of our democracy, a reflection of our nation’s values, and a pathway to a better future for all.

His ideas and arguments are entirely beside the real point, as shown below in my answer:

Ventura County Public Education Insecurity

Contrary to Dr. Cesar Morales’ recent op-ed (Defending public education in a time of uncertainty), Ventura County public education is uncertain and insecure due to ongoing failures of our local school administration, not endangered federal foundations. Only 10% of funding for our local schools comes from the Department of Education. With state and local funding of about $16,00.00-$20,000.00 per pupil yearly, Ventura County cannot even educate our students to the level of Common Core State Standards (California’s chosen measure), which is below that of the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress. Under CCSS Ventura county students achieve only 32% proficiency in math in elementary school, which then drops through middle school and high school to 28%! Reading fairs little better, from 44% of California state standards in elementary school to 48% by high school (publicschoolreview.com). By NAEP standards our students are significantly below the national average that itself has declined yearly since 2015. Note federal funds are dispensed regardless of how well school districts perform. Of $190 billion sent to school districts post-Covid, much was spent unrelated to academics (Edunomics Lab Georgetown University). We do not know how the Ventura Office of Education and the school districts locally spent their share of these emergency funds. Were some of these funds used for Dr. Morales’ vaunted “Equity Conference”?

Despite the progressive failure of our local education bureaucracy to minimally equip our public-school students in basic academic skills, they continue to disconnect accountability with accomplishment. As noted, funding is not tied to achievement, only to student attendance and the fact, not the outcome, of testing. The National Council on Teacher Quality has noted most states decouple teacher evaluation and tenure from students' scores. VCOE.org gives no clear indication that teacher evaluations, retention, and promotion are directly tied to student test scores.

Part of this is a national problem. “The National Council on Teacher Quality determined that 75 percent of U.S. colleges and universities don’t cover all of the components of the Science of Reading in their education majors” (How Can K–12 Education Rank Higher? By Aaron Gifford The Epoch Times March 19,2025).

Even so, “opposition to standardized tests as school and teacher assessment tools indicates that teacher unions...are in control of a “top-down system.” (Catrina Wigfall education policy fellow at the Minnesota-based Center for the American Experiment as quoted in Gifford, Epoch Times). As a local example, one local resident ran for a school board position this past election spending about $4,000.00 but was defeated by a teacher’s union candidate supported by $164,000.00 in union funds for a $300.00 per month job!

Dr. Morales’ major emphasis is not on student achievement, which has been failing for years under the current system, but ensuring first the “well-being” of students, and secondarily their success. He is mainly concerned with every child’s feeling included and valued at school, regardless of their actual achievements. He indicates that the reduction or elimination of the federal Department of Education is an attack on the fundamental civil rights of students. Thus the tripartite acronyms of DEI, CRT, and SEL (social-emotional learning) are to be emphasized, with academics a secondary issue. While Diversity should be recognized and accepted it should not be promoted as that is the anthesis of Inclusivity (and equality). “Equitable access to learning opportunities” has meant artificial assurance of equal outcomes regardless of merit or work. That has resulted in our high school graduates being deficient in basic academic skills as noted above. Equity is not equality under and before the law as guaranteed by our Constitution and state. Clear objective lessons in history teach what happened, how and why, but shouldn’t train students in beliefs of ongoing racial separatism, guilt, or inferiority. Discipline in the classroom, with strong and immediate involvement of parents, reinforces but does not replace parental rights and responsibilities in their primary guidance of the emotional well-being and maturation of their children.

Dr. Morales ends with the only appropriate idea in his article. He calls for shared responsibility and appreciation, for parents, business leaders, and community members to get engaged with local school sites. Having parents routinely monitor their children’s classrooms is an excellent and overdue proposal. Hopefully he will begin this immediately.

Yet we remember that we have a governor who thwarted the will of those parents with AB 1955 to overrule those communities who elected school board members who ran and won on parents’ rights. While state and local officials obstructed federal efforts at dealing with immigrants who illegally entered the country, those same officials later cooperated with the federal government in labelling protesting parents as possible “domestic terrorists”. Ventura schools, like all those in California, now actively hide a major mental health problem based in social contagion from parents, on penalty of state prosecution and/or withdrawal of state funding. Dr. Morales’ goal is to go further in substituting school bureaucrats for parents. His stated goal is to have wellness centers in every Ventura County school. With school-based meals, and medical/psychological care available under the control of our schools, what need of parents other than for off-hours housing of the state’s children?

The” attacks” Dr. Morales derides are on his current miseducation. Ventura County’s schools are provably providing a mediocre and failing education for students, setting them up for an unsuccessful and frustrating future. Public education is not indoctrination in social cohesion and obedience. It is proper training in the basic tools needed to conduct life.