SLO County schools keep flailing and failing. No more excuses | Opinion

When six in ten SLO County grads flunk math and nearly half can’t read at grade level, you have to ask: Are we graduating them in ‘Feelings and Entitlement’ instead of skills for work?

According to the California Department of Education’s 2025 assessment test results, just 54.2% of SLO County students met or exceeded English language arts standards and only 40.8% hit the mark in math. In Paso Robles, the numbers are worse. Just 43.9% met English standards and 29.9% met math.

Across the state, the numbers are equally disastrous. 2025 scores show more than half our kids can’t read at grade level and a staggering 62.7% are behind in math. Yet California pours in $19,548 per student. In the top tier nationally for bottom-tier results.

When parents ask why scores keep falling, Sacramento issues a news release calling it “continued progress.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom kept schools closed longer than almost any other state, while teachers unions blocked reopening even after science said it was safe. Test scores collapsed. Attendance cratered. The poorest children paid the price.

When teachers unions fund the referees to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s no surprise the score never changes.

Truth is our schools survive more on goodwill and community spirit than Sacramento’s competence. PTAs, volunteers, teachers, administrators and bus drivers who patch holes with time and heart. They keep the lights on when policy fails. We should thank them, even as we fix what’s broken.

Teach reading, not feelings: districts that get it right

It needn’t be this way. Mississippi — yes, Mississippi — now beats California in literacy. The “Mississippi Miracle” wasn’t divine intervention. It was discipline, phonics, teacher training, scorecards and the courage to hold back kids who couldn’t read by third grade. Today, Mississippi’s fourth-graders out-read California’s despite spending roughly half as much per pupil.

We don’t even have to go to Mississippi. In the Central Valley, Frank Sparkes Elementary gets 71.2% proficiency in English and 54.4% math. At Paso Robles’ Georgia Brown, a dual immersion school, those numbers are 39.4% and 35.5% respectively. Similar demographic, same state, different leadership choices. Frank Sparkes puts reading first and it shows. Georgia Brown has passionate staff and parents working hard, but the focus has drifted. One produces readers. The other needs to recalibrate.

SLO County goes for wellness centers. Texas gets high-tech

Despite poor academic scores, SLO County schools spend hundreds of thousands on “wellness centers.” Perhaps rather than invest in a cure, recognize the most powerful wellness intervention is academic competence.

Meanwhile, Texas’ Alpha Schools use smart tech for learning, freeing teachers to teach. Their students rank in the top 2% and finish a year’s work in half the time. Confidence is the best therapy.

Paso may ask voters to pass another $100–$220 million bond. It would be money well spent if invested in technology and systemic change to fix academics.

Here is a pragmatic playbook that works. Home visits for at-risk students. Weekly text nudges on attendance and homework. Parent workshops that model read-alouds and math games. Use simple parent contracts for attendance, sleep and device limits. Publish a regular one-page report card for each school that tracks reading growth, behavior incidents and missed days. Build this with parents and PTAs at the table and credit them when results improve.

If our schools spent less time refereeing ideological scrums and more time celebrating student success, we’d have fewer battles over locker rooms and library shelves. When schools rally parents, teachers and students around pride in achievement, the politics quiet down.

In places like Mississippi’s Gulfport School District and Texas’ Lubbock-Cooper High, strong principals rebuilt trust by returning to basics. Daily phonics drills, strict attendance, parental engagement and visible academic goals. The result? Higher scores, calmer schools, fewer culture wars. As one Gulfport principal put it, “When parents see their kids reading and succeeding academically, they stop fighting over what’s in the library.”

Partisan politics have no place in public education

We won’t fix public education while the referees keep wearing party jerseys. Local school boards were meant to serve children, not political parties or union donors. Yet unions pour millions into board races, endorsing candidates who reliably return the favor at contract time.

It’s a closed loop. School boards should be nonpartisan by law, funded only by small local donors, not special interests. County school administrators shouldn’t be financing candidates and teachers unions shouldn’t be buying the people who will later decide their pay. That’s not collective bargaining, that’s collective back-scratching.

This isn’t about blaming teachers. It’s about freeing them. The best teachers want standards, not slogans. Reward the ones who deliver results, retrain those who fall short and remove the few who shouldn’t be in a classroom.

That’s not union-busting. It’s quality control in the name of children, not politics. Excellence isn’t partisan and poverty isn’t destiny.

Hold teachers to a higher standard and we know that parents and students will rise to meet it. California lowered the bar so far it’s now a tripping hazard.

It’s not the kids who need to try harder. It’s the adults.

Clive Pinder hosts “CeaseFire” on KVEC 920AM/96.5 FM and writes at clivepinder.substack.com.

This story was originally published November 2, 2025 at 12:01 PM.