This paper provides responses to questions which address the effectiveness of California's instructional program and possible strategies for its improvement. The text mentions several topics including "excellence for all"; the needs of a "demographically changing student population"; James Coleman's notion that public schools meet the "social capital" needs of children; and "structural, organizational, and environmental changes at the school site level." Undergirding the responses are the assumptions that the questions interrelate, and that Coleman's "social capital" idea links to instructional program effectiveness and improvement issues. In refuting Coleman's notions, public school organizational and instructional reforms are proposed. (JAM)