Marshall Tuck for State Superintendent of Schools
Dear friends, families and colleagues,
My wife Katie has worked on getting better results for public school kids as long and as diligently as I have worked on health care for the uninsured. We know Marshall Tuck very well and have seen what he can do in turning around poor performing schools. At the very top of his platform are more funding for public schools and greater support for teachers. https://marshalltuck.com/invest-in-our-teachers-and-principals/ and https://marshalltuck.com/issues/classrooms-that-are-fully-funded/
Let me put the issue, as I see it, in terms with which I’m more familiar. What would you say about a hospital system, which had 30% higher maternal and infant mortality for Latino and African American moms and babies than it did for white moms and babies? You’d be outraged, and you’d call for an investigation, and then call for all necessary changes to improve that hospital’s care.
That is where we are in public education in the state of California. I just picked the comparison on performance for math in the eighth grade, in this state we rank 42nd. On achievement gaps between whites and Latinos, we rank #6, that’s the 6th worst, not the 6th best. You can pick any other comparisons by age, race and subject matter; you will see we are not doing well here by our kids in California. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile/overview/CA?cti=PgTab_GapComparisons&chort=2&sub=MAT&sj=CA&fs=Grade&st=MN&year=2017R3&sg=Race%2FEthnicity%3A+White+vs.+Hispanic&sgv=Difference&ts=Single+Year&tss=2017R3&sfj=NP
Right now in California we are both a low spending state and a poor performing state in public K-12 education. https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-best-schools/5335/ As you can see from the chart, some jurisdictions like Arkansas spend a lot and have very poor achievement while others like Indiana are spending much less but achieving much more. We spend a little and don’t get good results. We used to be top 10 in spending and student achievement when I moved here in 1979.
About ten years ago, I got to see first hand the educational opportunities for kids at the KIPP public charter schools in South LA and East LA and was blown away by the kids and the educational results. I’d encourage you to look at the rankings for the KIPP School in San Jose and the Green Dot School, Animo, in Inglewood to see what’s possible for our state’s students. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/california/rankings
Over the past 15 years, Marshall Tuck has led two systems that got much improved results educating poor kids; one was a public charter operator, Green Dot; one was the LA Partnership public district schools, which took over the poorest performing public schools in LA and turned them around. For the most recent four years, he has been working on teacher training and improving the classroom effectiveness of new teachers. https://marshalltuck.com/about-marshall/
That kind of turn around experience and that level of commitment to public education are what I’m looking for in the next leader in public school instruction for California, and why I’d hire Marshall for the job.
All the best for this election season, just vote!
Lucien