Days later, the North Monterey County School District adopted a budget that is 20 percent below what’s called for in the state’s funding formula.
“It’s very frustrating that the state government doesn’t have the wisdom to invest in the future of our state,” Gary De Amaral, North Monterey board president, said after his board’s budget vote.
Here in Santa Cruz County, Scotts Valley Unified School District has seen a $2.6 million drop in funding since 2007, while in Pajaro Valley Unified School District spending has been cut a net of 13 percent in the past three years, amounting to about $827 per student.
Right now, there is legislative gridlock in Sacramento. No budget again. They are more than two weeks late, with no end in sight. And yet, there is not a public discussion on the Central Coast of what’s at stake. Californians are rightfully angry at the annual circus in Sacramento.
According to the nonpartisan national publication Education Week, California passed a new milestone this past year — dropping from 46th to 47th among the states in per-pupil spending, earning California an F from Education Week.
At the heart of this year’s Sacramento deadlock is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cut $250 more per pupil from state support for kindergarten-through-12th-grade education, a reduction of 11 percent for local schools over the past three years. Republicans in the Legislature support the governor’s proposal. I don’t.
Alternative legislative ideas propose more K-12 education support. Teacher layoffs, higher class sizes — and the basic ability to educate our children for the challenges of the changing job market — all hang in the balance. I support this proposal.
The winner of the Aug. 17 special election for the 15th District Senate seat may cast the deciding vote in this choice over the future of California’s schools.
Rather than flooding the airwaves with false and misleading negative ads that don’t address California’s education crisis, education is what candidates should be talking about. Voters have a right to know each candidate’s plans for turning around California’s school system.
As we begin to come out of the Great Recession, one thing is clear: We will create jobs only to the extent that we have a workforce coming out of the public school system prepared to take the complex jobs that are the basis of the information technology world. We must also have career tech programs for students who choose hands-on vocational jobs as their alternative. Both of these directions are threatened by the governor’s budget proposal.
As has been pointed out by author Thomas Friedman in his work on future economic trends, our ability to compete with the economies of other nations depends on our ability to turn out students proficient in math and science. We are falling behind.
That is why I supported initiatives by the University of California to mentor high school students on math and science. That initiative, and others like it, is at risk in the current state budget. We can’t lose sight of the state’s long-term economic competitiveness. We must do more to compete in the world economy — not less.
This is my challenge to all the candidates in the 15h Senate District race: What are your specific plans for public education? If you don’t like my position to add money in this year’s budget and stop the cuts of the past three years, what is your specific proposal?
Platitudes don’t educate today’s students. Our kids’ futures — and that of California — are at stake in this budget and this election. Let’s start talking about that.
• John Laird is an educator and former state assemblyman who represented the 27th Assembly District from 2002 to 2008. To learn more about Laird, go to www.lairdforsenate.com or www.facebook.com/lairdforsenate. He is a candidate in the Aug. 17 special election for the 15th Senate District.
It all depends on what you count in the total cost. If you are going to compare a public school to a private school, you need to do accounting in a similar fashion otherwise it is not a true comparison. In real life (private business), you add all the real costs to operate such a business (i.e. salary, operating expenses, health care, pensions and school supplies).
Public school districts on the other hand, often exclude major expenses (like capital costs for new buildings or interest payments on the debt they carry) when calculating the per-student spending figure that they publicize. Sometimes they even leave out pension payments and insurance benefits for teachers.
Bad flying needs to understand that bonds are not free money (they just don't get counted in the same way because they show up on our property taxes)! It's all part of the real cost. If you factor these in, then your own calculations are probably not too far off then, now are they? Yikes!
California public schools have 6.2 million students. At $24K each, that would be 148,800,000,000, or about 185% of the total state budget. You're off by about 4x, so by using your own number for private schools (and I don't know of many as low as $8400/yr) it's about 75% the cost. There is excess bureaucracy at the top, no doubt, but that's the result of state and federal mandates for accountability. It's the burden imposed by a non-trusting public, well-deserved after so many incidents of abuse. We live with the mess we make.
That's not the problem. They don't have the guts to enforce the border or cut off aid to millions of mexicans. That's where all our money goes. Stop that and you'll have plenty for the schools. I think it's terrible that illegal mexicans come before our own kids' schools. Booo.
The irony here is that the notion that more money is the answer to our problems in education is the biggest platitude of the last twenty years. Change HOW money is spent. Don't not throw more money at a failing system.