Wish List for Schools

California schools chief cites needs in speech.

California’s schools are not doing what they should to prepare the state’s more than 6 million students for a society in which technological advances are occurring at lightning speed and business can be conducted around the clock, anywhere in the world, Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction, said last week.

During a State of Education Address that was at times harsh on public schools, he cited the achievement gaps between black and Hispanic students and their white peers in elementary grades, noting that the gaps widen...