The document breaks the Iqbal-Zubair plan into three levels of reform: the systemic level, the school level, and the classroom level. For sake of space, we have only incuded only our complete plan for system and the partial plan for school level. Please check out the complete plan at our website.

Reform the system

California's education system is being held back by several systemic issues that make any meaningful reform impossible until they are addressed head on. This section lays out those problems and proposes solutions.

1. Schools in low income Latinx and Black communities need to have massive funds reallocated to them.

The Problem: It is clear that there is more wealth in communities that have increased college graduates versus those that don’t. Lack of funding isn't a complicated problem to explain, but it's important enough to be the first problem mentioned here because if it isn't addressed the rest of this document is irrelevant. Raising performance at any level, let alone building a system so good the rest of the world uses it as a model is going to require massive financial investment. This investment needs to be higher in communities that need it in order to be truly equitable and reach our goals as a state.

The Solution: This campaign proposes three ways of raising extra revenue. The first is supporting the repeal of Proposition 13 for commercial businesses worth more than 3 million dollars. The second way is bond measures for the aspects of this plan that involve one time investments in infrastructure. The final way is raising taxes, especially on millionaires and billionaires. The conventional wisdom has been that California voters will revolt against tax increases, but the political make-up of California has changed. Voters are willing to consider raising taxes on themselves if it's in service to fixing a problem they consider a high priority. I also support the Schools & Communities First Act, as a phenomenal start to raising the revenue we need.  We need to fight to market public education as a high priority.

1. Teachers in low income communities need to be paid at least $60,000.

The Problem: In the United States, teachers are not valued. Teachers earn 19 percent less than comparable professionals (Economic Policy Institute). Many teachers have to take on an additional job just to be able to live. In low income districts the gap is even worse. In our district particularly, this leads to high turnover rates (where teachers quit or go to other districts which pay more) and teacher shortages which severely impacts students. 

The Solution: All public school teachers need to be paid a minimum of $60,000.

1. All charter schools should be phased out.

The Problem: Charter schools promise access to better education on paper, but they make the entire system worse in practice. They're hotbeds of theft and fraud, they drain funding from public schools, they're governed by corporations and backed by billionaires, and if they do succeed in delivering better education to some students the model doesn't scale up to help everyone. 

The Solution: California's lukewarm efforts at reform aren't enough. We need to get California on a path to ending charter schools entirely. It first starts with requiring all charter schools to be unionized so teachers can be treated fairly across the board). It also means banning the creation of new charter schools immediately and then phasing out the charter schools that already exist in such a way that doesn't interrupt the education of students who are already enrolled in them, but also phases them out entirely once those students graduate. A few already existing charter schools may be allowed to dissolve their charter, and transform their school to be a public school in the public school district.

1. The social, emotional and academic needs of our special needs students are 100% met.

The Problem: The true nature of a public school is that it should be capable of serving every student that walks through its doors. However this isn’t happening in all of our public schools, due to lack of teacher and aide training. This causes students to be pushed out of public schools because the school feels unprepared to serve them, almost (unintentionally) operating as a charter school.

The Solution: The problem doesn’t lie with the school, it lies in how we are making sure educators  feel fully equipped to deal with every type of student. We need to make sure that an adequate portion of public education funding from the state that goes down to each district prioritizes providing high level training for all teachers to be able to differentiate amongst all of their students with special abilities. Public school districts also need to be equipped to have specialized aides that can deal with specific disabilities, such as autism, so that these services aren’t privately contracted out.

1. Eliminate Standardized testing

The Problem: Standardized testing is a bad measurement of student and teacher performance. It's also actively detrimental to a teacher's ability to teach and students' ability to learn. Preparing for standardized tests monopolizes class time that could be spent on actual learning in order to pit students against each other in a memorization contest that reveals more about their socio-economic status than their ability to learn. 

The Solution: We can do better. In Section 3 we lay out new ways to structure classrooms and material that will put California ahead of the curve for the next hundred years. But there is no place for standardized testing in that new system, nor is there a place for it in any 21st century educational system. We should eliminate standardized testing entirely.

1. A 1:1 ratio of each student having a tablet.

The Problem: Aside from the fact that we're literally damaging our children's spines by forcing them to carry around textbooks, this is mostly a problem of missed opportunities. Because every student doesn't have guaranteed access to the same technology it limits the ability of schools to take advantage of the potential learning resources. 

The Solution: Every student should be issued a tablet by the state that can serve as an easily portable hub for all learning materials, note taking, and supplemental resources for the entirety of their school career.  

1. Schools are 100% sustainable spaces.

The Problem: Schools are wasteful. Paper and plastic bottles are wasted and not consistently recycled at every school. Excess food from meals are thrown away. 

The Solution: Every school needs to be equipped with the ability to recycle paper and plastics, and give excess food back to those in the community who could benefit from it. Teachers and students should teach and learn using as much technology as possible, so that paper isn’t wasted. Students should be provided with reusable water bottles that can be refilled. 

1. Students will excel when they feel at their best.

The Problem: Low income Latinx and Black students are not at optimal physical health and many develop severe developmental and respiratory illnesses due to environmental injustices. This clearly and obviously impacts their ability to learn.

The Solution: It’s time that as a society, we start valuing our Latinx and Black students just as much as we do any other student. This begins with making sure we transition away from oil drilling and toxic sites that impact air and water quality. Oil and toxic waste sites have no business being near a school and should be phased out, but for now be 2500 ft away. When a public school is built in a low-income community it is important that all environmental codes are followed for the entire public school property.

Reform the schools 

Our campaign believes in the vision of the public school as a community school. Under this model, we invest in schools and campuses not simply as places of learning, but as the center and “hub” of the community itself. In this section, we lay out our vision for what every school would look like under the community model.

1. Services and resources that benefit both students, parents and teachers  are given space on campus and are accessible to the community at all times. In low income communities with a high rate of trauma, and secondary trauma for teachers, this is highly vital.

2. Every public school has active parent engagement. Parents are key stakeholders in any community endeavor, but they are not always given full access to public schools. The amount of parent engagement has been shown to directly impact the quality of the school. The school needs to help parents feel empowered.

3. Schools in low-income communities of color need more teachers that look like them. Studies have shown that when this is the case, rates of student success in these communities are higher. 

4. History curriculum for elementary, middle and highschool needs to be rewritten from the lens of those that were colonized not the colonizers. Every high school should have a mandatory Ethnic Studies and African American Studies course as a graduation requirement.

5. Leadership is based on partnership. Parents, faculty and the administration work together to identify the results they want to achieve and that consensus becomes school policy. The school and what it delivers is held accountable by the community through rigorous community evaluation and feedback needs to be taken into account. 

6. Schools become more democratic. Students, through student government, are given dramatically more power and responsibility. 

7. Schools in low-income neighborhoods may apply to state or district grants that will allow them to bring innovative instructional pedagogies to their classrooms. Many low-income schools struggle to bring innovative instruction (such as Project Lead the Way) due to  lack of funding. These schools should be given an opportunity to apply for a grant in order to have access to these programs in their schools.

8. Class size is limited to 33 students. Studies have shown that the impacts of consistently having large classes are detrimental for students. We currently have public schools which don’t even have tables or seats for students, and class sizes that are so large that it is impossible for a teacher to deliver quality instruction. This has to change.

9. All schools should get training provided on the restorative justice model. This is a no-brainer to reduce the school to prison pipeline of Black and Latinx students. However I will add that restorative justice is not a quick-fix, and is a complete change in culture. While this needs to be brought to every public school, it is imperative that skilled training be provided to teachers and administrators and that time limits not be set on when all practices are fully implemented.

10. Schools should start at later times. Study after study has shown that children learn better and are even safer with a later school start.

11. The length of the school day should be considered. Studies do not consistently show that a longer school day leads to better academic achievement. Additionally, in our community model, teachers are seen as community leaders. In order for this to be the case, a shorter school day would allow teachers to lead more extra-curricular activities and be more present for community work outside the classroom. 

12. Children learn best when they play. Schools should create individuals who not only achieve academically, but who come out of the school system with the socio-emotional skills and behaviors to contribute to a just society. 85% of a child’s brain develops by the time they are 5, give or take a year (depending on the child). This means that key values and behaviors are learned during this time, and we need to provide the right environment of play in order to nourish this. Pre-schools and Kindergartens need to be structured around a “learn by playing” model. Students under 7 should receive no homework for this reason.

13. Extra-curricular opportunities are dramatically expanded. Part of this means that all schools spend Title IVB money as it is intended to be spent, not lumping it with Title I money. Especially in low-income communities, extracurriculars give children inspiration to go to and complete college. Overall, these programs allow students to figure out where their passions lie, what they care about, and what sort of adults they want to become. 

14. All students have access to comprehensive tutoring. Study after study has shown that access to good tutoring is the number one difference maker in helping students who are falling behind stay successful.

15. More guidance counselors are present in public schools. Guidance counselors are unable to actually follow through on their job of providing guidance because they are, on average, charged with helping more than twice the number of students it's possible for one person to oversee. We need to hire more counselors to address this.

16. Public schools have an improvement in physical education. Having physical education that actually helps students maintain their health instead of checking a box for number of times they can run around a track with a hundred other students is an important aspect of making schools more successful. Under the community school model the nursing office would be dramatically expanded and refocused on preventative medicine. Students would receive a health check-up at the beginning of each school year that would be used to generate personalized health goals for each student. Phys-Ed teachers would be in charge of helping students follow through on those goals in a personalized way.

17. All schools have better school lunches that are free for every student. Our school lunches are not good. They don't taste good, they aren't healthy, and nobody likes them. We propose a ground up overhaul of the school lunch system. Under our model, the district would be tasked with purchasing the ingredients in bulk. However, instead of partially or fully assembling the lunches off site, the district sends fresh ingredients to the schools where they're cooked by parents who are being paid to participate. The paid part is important because parents in low-income neighborhoods don't have the same flexibility to volunteer their time as parents in high income neighborhoods. In addition, every student deserves a free lunch.

18. We need to schedule classes in a smart way. Giving every class fifty minutes for six periods a day isn't an effective way to budget time for teaching every subject. Some classes, like math, benefit from meeting every day for about an hour. However, English literature classes would work far better as three hour classes that meet once a week, which would give students more time out of class time to do the reading and more in class time to have substantive discussions. Other classes like Science would benefit from alternating between short lecture periods and longer lab periods. Scheduling needs to be rethought to accommodate the learning needs of each class.

19. More skills workshops are needed. Schools should be home to educational opportunities that don't fit neatly into a classroom setting but benefit students (or their parents or members of the community). These could include workshops that teach how to:

1. File taxes

2. Cook

3. Manage a personal budget

4. Take out a loan

5. Write a resume

6. Shop for insurance

7. Check if a website is telling the truth

8. etc.

The final place where reform needs to occur is in the classroom itself, in the way academic content is taught. The current system limits students’ ability to learn and teachers ability to teach. The following three reforms would dramatically change that and deliver far better outcomes for everyone involved.

1. Culturally Relevant Lessons

We need to do away with only teaching from the textbook. Especially in our low income communities of color, outdated or even the context in which current education topics are taught are not the best way to reach our Latinx and Black students. It’s important to teach content within a context that our students will find highly engaging. This may vary from school to school, and this is part of what being a community school is about. 

1. Mastery learning

How it works: Many subjects taught in school are cumulative. If you don’t master the content in one lesson, it's difficult or impossible to understand the next lesson. This is why the grading system needs to be changed. If a student graduates from the second grade with a "C" in math, or even a "B," they do not have a fully working understanding of second grade math and are going to struggle in the third grade. Mastery Learning presents a completely different, and far more effective approach. Instead of teaching many concepts over a period of several weeks and then testing the student on all of them at once, Mastery Learning teaches one concept at a time and then tests. If the student gets a 90% or higher on the test they move on to the next concept. If they don't, they will continue studying the concept while receiving additional instruction or tutoring help until they master it. This system allows students who more immediately understand the material to advance quickly, without being held back, while allowing students who need more help to receive that help. 

How it would be implemented: Mastery Learning, if implemented correctly, has been proven to provide wildly better results for both students and teachers. However, it would require a complete shift in how the classroom is structured. The lecture style with a teacher standing in front of a board would be mostly gone. Instead, students would work with students of skill levels. Teachers and aides would be walking around providing guidance, assistance, and perhaps small group lessons. Group learning strategies would also be used, where students who are struggling with a concept could be paired with students who already understand it. 

1. Project-based & Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning

Students learn best when they do the thinking and doing, rather than listening to a lecture. Teachers need to be provided with a high level of training and also consistent support in project-based methodologies, including the 5E model so that our students can maximize academic growth. Learning should also be interdisciplinary. When a child’s curiosity is piqued, their brain is not processing what subject they are engaged with, it is processing how to engage with, explore or explain what they are facing in their environment from multiple academic disciplines. 80% of jobs in the next decades will include STEAM skills- this means that these skills have to be integrated across all subjects, not just Math, Science & Art.

3.  Finally, in order for California to truly have the greatest education system in the world, we need to reexamine the basic objectives of education. Yes, the purpose of education is to communicate knowledge. But, more importantly, it's a forum where students can learn socio-emotional and thinking skills that can be widely applied to any situation for the rest of their lives. The outcome of a world class education should be the acquisition of exemplary socio-emotional, analysis and synthesis skills. In other words, students need to graduate with the ability to effectively empathize with another and to take an idea apart and put an idea together. That means de-emphasizing subjects that are heavy on memorization for its own sake and the introduction of some subjects that sharpen these holistic skills. Specifically, symbolic logic should be taught as a math requirement in middle school and every class should be organized around teaching critical analysis skills. Humanities classes that push students to use and develop their creative humanistic and problem solving skills should also be emphasized. Emphasizing these thinking skills early on will set students up to succeed in whatever field they eventually choose to specialize in later in life.

As mentioned, many of these policies would require California to prioritize public education, which would mean increased funding. It also means that when funding is pushed down to local school boards and public school districts, that more frequent accounts and oversight of how the school is using the money have to be delineated to the state, to hold these public education entities accountable to creating the best product for the community. However, the result would be that teachers, students, parents and entire communities would feel that the public school is serving their child’s needs and their own needs in every possible way. Implemented all together, they represent a true revolution in educational policy and would set the stage for California to lead the world in the way public education is supposed to serve a community.