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In January Governor Schwarzenegger gave a political speech in which he proposed a ten percent budget cut to all California Public Institutions. This ten percent would mean a 4.2 billion dollar cut to California’s Public Schools which would result in an 80 million dollar cut to San Diego Unified School District. Due to these proposed budget cuts, the San Diego Unified School Board made the controversial decision to layoff 920 teachers. The argument of the school board was that they were trying to maintain a balanced school budget. However, out of the three largest districts in California, San Diego Unified was the only district to make the decision to give teachers layoff notices. A loss of 920 teachers would be detrimental to the city of San Diego. Denton Record Chronicle
Hundreds join march to protest education cuts
San Diego Union Tribune - 2 hours ago
“No more cuts!” the crowd chanted during the march. Several protesters held signs criticizing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is calling for $4.4 billion in cuts to education statewide to meet California's projected $16 billion budget shortfall.
Teachers, students protest cuts San Diego Union Tribune
Other states woo California teachers amid wave of pink slips The Associated Press
all 106 news articles »
Students join effort to fight school cuts
San Jose Mercury News - 17 hours ago
Efforts to fight the budget cuts run the gamut, from letter writing to media-savvy publicity stunts like students in Alameda standing in large garbage bins to show their education is being "thrown away." The California State PTA, which has 1 million ...
Cuts alone not enough, many lawmakers say - taxes or fee hikes may ...
San Francisco Chronicle - 1 hour ago
As state lawmakers carry on a raging debate over how to solve California's fiscal crisis, they agree on one thing: The situation is getting worse.
Education cuts call for action
La Oferta - Apr 18, 2008
Should the Governor’s budget cuts be approved, the impact on education will be felt across the board. Public schools from every county and city in California will suffer the effects of public education constantly being used as a scapegoat to restore ...
REGION: Hundreds rally against proposed education cuts
North County Times - 32 minutes ago
Arnold Schwarzenegger's January budget proposal, which calls for drastic cuts to education funding. Hundreds of people representing nearly all of North County's school districts walked with signs along freeway overpasses on parts of Highway 78 and ...
Times wrong about education cuts
Contra Costa Times - 20 hours ago
The fact is, in what he claimed was supposed to be the "Year of Education," the governor proposed an across-the-board budget cut of 10 percent. There have not been any other budget proposals put forward since then, so how the cuts were suddenly and ...
Supporters lobby for PVPUSD
Palos Verdes Peninsula News - 8 hours ago
Arnold Schwarzenegger proposing budget cuts of up to $16 billion, including more than $4 billion in education cuts, school districts across California are feeling the heat. Schwarzenegger’s proposal is contingent upon the suspension of Prop.
Charter withdraws petition Palos Verdes Peninsula News
all 2 news articles »
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State PTA would like to 'Flunk the Budget'
Parents, educators statewide urged to voice their opposition.
By Sharon Cotal Signal Staff Writer scotal@the-signal.com 661-259-1234 x519
Flunk the state budget, not the state's children.
That's the message the California PTA is encouraging members statewide to send to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other state government leaders.
The "Flunk the Budget" campaign asks that every PTA member write letters, make phone calls, and send faxes and e-mails to state government leaders opposing Schwarzenegger's proposed 10 percent across-the-board cuts to the state education budget.
"It's just a grassroots effort to let our government leaders know that the proposed budget is not fair," said Sabrina Utter, president of the Santa Clarita Valley Council PTA. "The goal is to get as many people as possible to concentrate their efforts to let legislators know that the budget is not okay the way it is - to flunk the budget."
Sample letters are available on the state PTA Web site, www.capta.org, along with key points to ommunicate when voicing opposition to the proposed cuts. The site recommends that most
communications take place on "Flunk-the-Budget Fridays" when state legislators are typically in their home districts, instead of in Sacramento.
"They're asking people to make most of their phone calls and send e-mails on Fridays, because they think it will send more of a message all in one day," Utter said. "We hope the legislators will realize that education is not the place to make cuts."
Parents should realize that all students will be affected by these cuts, and that one person's voice can make a difference, Utter said.
"I just wish more people understood that we really can make a difference," Utter said. "We're not held hostage to what the state leaders are doing - legislators do listen if enough people contact
them and voice their concerns."
The state PTA also plans to hold a rally opposing the proposed state budget cuts to education during its convention in May in Long Beach.
http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/1290 Return to top of page
Fed-State Double Whammy Massive Funding Cuts to ‘Reading First’ Generate Worries for Struggling Schools
By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo
The reading coaches, professional-development programs, and instructional materials that are the cornerstones of the Reading First program and are credited with improving instruction in struggling schools may be threatened by a deep cut included in the 2008 federal budget, officials and observers say.
The reduction of more than 60 percent—from nearly $1 billion each year since the program was rolled out in 2002 to $393 million for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1—will likely inhibit further improvements and test the sustainability of the changes Reading First has fostered over the past six years. The cut is part of an omnibus spending bill President Bush signed into law last month.
“A 60 percent cut—this is huge,” said Joni Gillis, who oversees Oregon Reading First. Her state is expecting its funding to drop this fiscal year from nearly $10 million to less than $4 million. The program “is not going to be like it was, but the best practices, the solid core instruction, how we look at data to inform that instruction,” she said, are “behavior changes [that] will stick.”
Ms. Gillis and other state officials across the country are now trying to find ways to bolster the program, part of the No Child Left Behind Act, with other federal and state dollars.
The U.S. Department of Education is working with states to identify other potential sources to pay for the program, such as with federal Title I and Title II money, according to Amanda Farris, a deputy assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education. The funding cuts do not release Reading First grantees from any of the program’s strict regulatory requirements, she noted.
“States will need to make the determination [of where to make cuts], but it will probably mean 60 percent fewer schools and 60 percent fewer children” benefiting from the program, Ms. Farris said.
Effects of Probes
While widely viewed as beneficial for improving reading instruction in elementary schools with large proportions of disadvantaged children, Reading First—President Bush’s flagship program in the subject—was the focus of several federal investigations and congressional hearings from 2005 to 2007.
Reports by the Education Department’s inspector general suggested that federal officials and consultants had overstepped their authority in steering states to adopt certain curricula and assessments for use in the program, and that there were conflicts of interest among federal decisionmakers who had ties to commercial products purchased by Reading First schools. ("'Reading First' Information Sent to Justice Dept.," April 25, 2007.)
Cutting Deep
States will lose slightly more than 60 percent of their Reading First funding this fiscal year. A sampling shows how significant the across-the-board cuts are for individual states.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of EducationThose charges, and the political maneuvering in the federal budget process, may have doomed the program to taking a big hit, according to Jack Jennings, the president and chief executive officer of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization that has conducted state surveys on Reading First since the program’s inception.
“The controversy with the inspector general reports and a feeling on the part of members of Congress that they had to somehow discipline the administration for poor conduct” were factors, said Mr. Jennings, a former House aide to Democrats. “Then, when the president vetoed the appropriations bill that would have increased funding for education, … Congress put the money where they wanted rather than in Bush’s priorities.”
Rep. David R. Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat and the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, had threatened such cuts last spring after two hearings by the House Education and Labor Committee and a Senate report that outlined management and ethics concerns.
“The bill includes $1.1 billion in program cuts and consolidations with a significant cut to the Reading First program (-$629 million), which the administration used in its own version of ‘earmarking,’ steering billions of dollars to favored publishers and individuals,” Mr. Obey’s press release on the budget measure said. Other members of Congress, however, support the program.
“We’re disappointed to see cuts to Reading First, a program that has a track record of proven results,” Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., the ranking Republican on the education committee, said in a statement last week. “With the Department of Education and Congress working throughout the last year to improve structural weaknesses in the program, it’s hard to understand why the program is now being cut so dramatically. Ultimately, the result of these cuts will be fewer resources to help children learn to read.”
The administration’s proposal for a similar program to promote scientifically based math instruction did not receive any of the $250 million President Bush had asked for. Math Now, part of the America Competes Act that was approved with bipartisan support in Congress in August, would have provided grants for elementary and middle school math programs. Congress had authorized $95 million for Math Now, and another $95 million for improving high school math instruction. Neither program was in the final budget. ("Bush Scores Modest Victory on Ed. Budget," Jan. 9, 2008.)
Cut Too Little?
For some critics of the reading program, the cuts were insufficient.
“As it stands now, I don’t think Reading First should be funded at all,” Stephen Krashen, a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, wrote in an e-mail. “It imposes … heavy doses of phonemic awareness and intensive phonics, extremist approaches that are not supported by the research. It hasn’t worked, [and] there is evidence of serious corruption/conflict of interest in the awarding of Reading First funds,” he said.
Mr. Krashen argues that the results of state, national, and international tests have not shown significant improvements to justify the investment in Reading First. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading, for example, scores for the nation’s 4th graders have increased only slightly since the program was implemented. And their performance on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study—which gauges reading skills of children in 39 countries—did not improve from 2001 to 2006.
Many states have reported gains for participating schools on state reading tests and classroom assessments, but the results vary across districts and states, and the data are generally not comparable because of the range of tests that are used in the program. Research has also shown that many states do not set their bar as high as NAEP does, making it even harder to judge how well students are performing. The interim results of one federally financed study have not yet been released, and other independent empirical studies are under way.
Regardless of the budget cut, officials in several states said they are prepared to stay the course, citing the benefits they have seen from the structured instruction, assessments, and intervention programs that Reading First requires. Continuing to pay for reading coaches and professional development, however, could prove difficult amid tough times for many state budgets as well, some say.
In Oregon, Ms. Gillis said many of the tenets of Reading First have become part of the statewide literacy plan. Several districts that received Reading First grants have been adapting the model to schools that do not receive the funding, she said.
In the 20,000-student Hillsboro district, for example, just four of 23 elementary schools receive Reading First money. But teachers in other schools in the district have taken part in professional-development sessions, and officials plan to adopt new textbooks for all schools that reflect the principles of Reading First, according to Brenda Kephart, Hillsboro’s director of school improvement. Ms. Kephart said the district, located outside Portland, will focus most of its energy on one school that entered the program just three years ago. Another school, David Hill Elementary, will receive additional state money to serve as a model for other Oregon schools.
That school, where most students are English-language learners, more than doubled the proportion of its 3rd graders meeting state benchmarks—to 76 percent—from 2003 to 2005.
“We would love to see some of our other Title I schools have the same opportunities as our Reading First schools, but that will not be a possibility,” Ms. Kephart said. “We have seen such success, and the data is unbelievable. So it really is a shame that some of the controversy around Reading First overshadowed some of that positive data.”
Teachers in all the Hillsboro district’s high-poverty schools have already adopted the Reading First model, according to Christie Petersen, a teacher on special assignment at the district’s central office.
“The work in the Reading First schools lit the fire” and shaped the district literacy plan, Ms. Petersen said. “As one is phasing out in name only, the best practices for kids are pretty solidly in place,” she said, “and teachers are embracing them, and they are becoming part of their daily practice.
From Edweek.org Return to top of page
O'Connell rips budget cuts
Schools chief says state priorities are misplaced
Michael Sorba, Staff Writer
Article Created: 04/04/2008 09:07:30 PM PDT
The state superintendent of public instruction on Friday blasted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to cut $4.8 billion from public education.
Jack O'Connell called the 10 percent cut "nothing less than devastating to education."
"The governor says we have a spending problem," he said. "What we have is a problem with our values and principles."
Trying to close a projected $14.5 billion budget gap, Schwarzenegger has proposed closing dozens of state parks, releasing thousands of prisoners early, and cutting 10 percent in everything from social services and transportation to schools and health care.
"Some might say that it sounds easy to just cut across the board by 10 percent, but let me tell you, it is very difficult," Schwarzenegger has said.
O'Connell made the comments at Juanita Blakely Jones Elementary School in San Bernardino. He was joined by local education leaders and concerned community members.
O'Connell said the governor's proposal is a "hostile suspension of Prop. 98." Proposition 98, which was approved by state voters in 1988 and re-approved in 2004, sets a minimum-funding level for K-12 public schools and community colleges.
If the governor's budget passes, O'Connell said education funding will likely drop below the minimum level and undermine the will of voters.
As a result, class sizes will increase, the quality of education will be lessened, and fewer programs will be provided, he said.
"Simply put, this budget is a giant step backwards," O'Connell said.
James Kidwell, deputy superintendent for the Ontario-Montclair School District, which oversees schools in Montclair and a majority of schools in Ontario, said the proposal would trim the district's budget by about $13.5 million.
"Any cut that the state makes to the educational budget will impact children," he said. "When you make cuts, it affects the people who work with the children on a day-to-day basis." If the budget passes, Kidwell said the district won't have to lay off teachers but that changes will be necessary.
"We're hopeful when all is said and done everyone will still have work in the school district, but they may not be doing what they're doing now," he said.
According to the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools' Office, the county's 33 school districts would lose $225.6 million, or $700 per student, under the governor's proposal.
O'Connell pointed to a recent report by Education Week - a weekly publication that covers education issues nationwide - that ranked California the 46th state in the nation in dollars spent per pupil.
According to the report, the state is $1,900 below the national average in per-pupil spending. California is even $1,500 below Louisiana, which endured Hurricane Katrina in 2005, O'Connell said.
If the governor's cuts are implemented, California will likely drop even lower in per-pupil spending, he said. "The budget of the governor says anything but the schools are a priority," said Herbert R. Fischer, the county's superintendent.
Massive cuts to education will hobble local economies for years, because it affects the public education system's ability to create an educated work force, he said.
"We know the No. 1 issue in this county isn't crime or smog ... it's the fact that we have an uneducated work force," Fischer said.
Tim McGillivray, spokesman for the Pomona Unified School District, which would have about $12 million trimmed from its budget if Schwarzenegger's budget passes, agreed with Fischer.
"Education is crucial to the short-term and long-term health of our state," he said. "I think that's what's perplexing a lot of educators and parents.
"How can you cut public education so much and expect it to have a positive impact on our future economic situation?"
michael.sorba@sbsun.com
(909) 386-3872
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
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From the Los Angeles Times
STEVE LOPEZ
Ponying up for a public education
Steve Lopez
April 9, 2008
Twenty-five years ago, I had a child enter kindergarten.
And now here I go again.
Yes, I take full responsibility for my actions. I just never imagined, as a native of a state with a once-great reputation for the quality of its public schools, that I'd attend a meeting like the one I attended Monday night at Ivanhoe Elementary in Silver Lake. That's where my daughter will start school in September.
The auditorium was packed; the mood somber. About 200 parents had come to hear what everyone knew would be disturbing news. An anticipated $180,000 budget shortfall might well cost three critically important Ivanhoe educators their positions at the school, though they might be transferred elsewhere.
The parents group at the school had summoned families to tell them the news. And to present an alternative: a public education that would no longer be free.
Get out your checkbooks, parents were told. All those wrapping-paper sales and pancake fundraisers wouldn't be enough. We could either pony up some hard cash, or see Ivanhoe's standing as one of L.A. Unified's best schools threatened.
"We shouldn't be here tonight," parent Perry Herman told the crowd. "Our nation chooses to bail out investment houses rather than insuring our children."
But here we were, with the Friends of Ivanhoe urging parents to pay whatever they could to cover the shortfall and save the jobs of math coach and academic advisor Lynda Rescia, technology coordinator Carlos Hernandez and literacy coach Mary Frances Smith-Reynolds. "She knows the reading strengths and weaknesses of every child in this school," a parent named Nancy Berglass said of Smith-Reynolds, praise that was echoed by parents and teachers for both of the others.
A parent across the aisle from me wiped away tears. So did a teacher who had to interrupt her own tribute to Rescia, Hernandez and Smith-Reynolds.
The principal, Jumie Sugahara, told me she hadn't yet received final budget numbers from district headquarters and couldn't say for sure how bad the hit would be. But the parents group did some math and decided to start the fundraising drive now, assuming Ivanhoe and other high-performing schools would get bigger cuts than schools that have greater challenges.Pay $25, if that's all you can afford, Herman said. But he pointed up to a screen encouraging parents to dig a little deeper. Those three jobs can be saved, he said, if 80 parents contribute $250 apiece, 75 contribute $500, 50 fork over $1,000, 20 give $2,000 and six bust the bank with $5,000 contributions.
Four other L.A. Unified schools have already gone this route, Herman said, citing Canyon, Wonderland Avenue, Carpenter Avenue and Mar Vista.
If anyone in the audience was shaken by the reality of public school finance in the coming year, Berglass said, they'd better brace themselves for what might follow.
"The cuts we are talking about are just the tip of the iceberg," Berglass said, explaining that LAUSD has to cut $100 million districtwide this year, but may have to trim an additional $350 million in the two years after that.
She urged parents to tap grandparents, their religious congregations and their trust funds.
For several reasons, I find this all rather extraordinary. I feel more than a little lucky to live in a good neighborhood with a great public school that parents are passionate about. At the same time, I can't help but think about the impact of budget cuts at schools where there's not a chance of parents raising anywhere near $180,000.
At nearby Micheltorena Street School, where more than 90% of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, the principal told me that of course she can't match that kind of parental support. She's hoping that given the greater needs of her students, she'll be spared harsh cuts. But like other principals, she doesn't yet know how bad the news will be.
And the cuts were initiated, as you know, by a man who has tried to pass himself off as the education governor -- a man who doesn't have to worry about the impact of budget cuts on his own children. They go to private school.
David Goldberg, an Ivanhoe parent and an official with the teachers union, stood up and told parents that in addition to opening their checkbooks and fighting for their school, they needed to participate "in a broader movement that rejects all cuts."
Goldberg said he was a student at Micheltorena in 1977, when voters approved Proposition 13, saving homeowners billions in the coming years but delivering one blow after another to funding for education and other public services.
If corporate property taxes were reassessed upon sale, as are homes, it would help fill the budget gap, Goldberg said. And if the governor hadn't scaled back the car registration fee, parents might not be forced to start paying for schools that have always been free.
Berglass suggested that parents take the rebates promised by President Bush and donate them to Ivanhoe. Not a bad idea, but when will we ever stop playing this shell game in which politicians rise to power promising prosperity without pain, even as working folks and retirees pay through the nose?
After hearing how deeply parents and teachers care about Ivanhoe, I was all the more convinced to write a check and send my daughter there.
I was sitting with Jeff Kelly, who moved into a costly fixer-upper last year just to be in the Ivanhoe neighborhood so he could avoid the cost of private school. He said he'll pony up too, although on principle he's conflicted. And so will Rob Schnapf, who noted that if he pays $1,000 a year for two his two children, it's a fraction of what he'd pay at private school.
Parent Brigid LaBonge said the take for the evening was $30,000, with more expected soon in pledge envelopes parents picked up at the door.
Only $150,000 to go.
This school year, anyway.
steve.lopez@latimes.com Return to top of page
FUNDING EDUCATION
Will layoff notices spook potential teachers?
Shortage possible in the next decade
By Chris Moran
STAFF WRITER
April 7, 2008
More than 2,000 teachers countywide – about 8 percent of local teachers – have been told they could lose their jobs if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget pas
NELVIN CEPEDA / Union-Tribune
Southwestern College students Elizabeth Esquivel and Jesus Monreal, who plan on being teachers, listened to their instructor.
The layoff notices aren't final, but educators and analysts say the effect on schools could be harmful for years to come.
Thousands of potential educators may be driven from the profession, spooked by the suddenly shaky job prospects, said Margaret Gaston, executive director of The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, a nonprofit organization based in Santa Cruz.
If that happens, the state could come up short as school districts seek to replace 100,000 teachers expected to retire in the next decade, as well as those who change professions, move out of state and leave to raise families.
This is all occurring as the number of people taking the teaching profession's state entrance exam has declined by 32 percent in the past five years, according to a report that will be given this week to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. The report also documents a sharp drop in the number of people enrolled in credentialing programs.
The effect of this year's layoff notices could complicate recruiters' efforts to meet the long-term demand for teachers, said Chris Reising, director of the Teacher Recruitment and Support Center run by the County Office of Education.
“We hear all the time, 'How can there be jobs when there are all these layoffs?' ” Reising said.
The alarm about the future of the teaching corps has been raised before. A decade ago, the California State University system pledged to step up education of teachers to meet a forecasted shortage. Yet local districts have reported a plethora of candidates for teaching positions in recent years.
Even in its call for a long view on producing new teachers, The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learninghas no prediction of how many will be needed in the next decade.
It doesn't forecast how many teachers will leave the profession for reasons other than retirement. Nor does it predict whether more or fewer teachers will be needed without knowing whether the recent decline in student enrollment will reverse.
Although the state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 hasn't been approved, school districts were required to tell teachers by March 15 if they might be laid off.
The notices have been widespread. Guillermo Gomez, a former county teacher of the year, got one, and so did 24 of the 26 teachers at a City Heights elementary school in San Diego. Chula Vista teachers with as much as nine years of experience have been told they might not have jobs next year.
During the most recent layoff scare, in 2003, 20,000 teachers statewide received layoff notices, The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning said. About 3,000 of them lost their jobs.
In the following two years, the number of university students enrolled in teacher preparation programs in California dropped by nearly 9,500, the center said.
At San Diego State University, the number of liberal studies majors – the major for students who intend to pursue elementary school teaching credentials – dropped by 500 from 2003 to 2005, a 30 percent decline.
“We still haven't recovered from it yet,” Gaston said.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell talked about what he called the “pipeline” problem during a visit to San Diego's Lincoln High School last month. O'Connell said the threat of budget cuts could nudge would-be teachers into other academic majors if they perceive a tough teaching job market.
Phoebe Roeder, San Diego State's liberal studies coordinator, said her students are well aware of the layoff notices. Some students are considering different career plans, Roeder said. Others remain on a teaching path. Still others intend to stay in school another year for an advanced degree or other credentials.
Mark Baldwin, dean of Cal State San Marcos' School of Education, said the university will reach out to recent graduates to market administrative credentials, master's degrees and other extra training. Baldwin also has invited colleagues from Glendale to come to a local job fair to look at his students.
“We're looking at alternative ways to keep them in the profession,” Baldwin said. “We could have a hole in the workforce suddenly that's kind of an unanticipated consequence of what's going on right now.”
Students in the Southwestern College Teacher Education Preparation Program said they are resolved to pursue a teaching career despite the current hard times. Natalia Leyva of Chula Vista said the state budget crisis means she may have to leave San Diego to teach.
“I think people that are going to be very good teachers are thinking about leaving California,” Leyva said.
Fort Worth, Texas, is counting on it. The school district there has purchased billboard space in Pacific Beach advertising teaching openings.
Reising said that in addition to continued shortages in math, science and special education, as retirements take effect there will be a wave of openings among the elementary ranks.
Take Chula Vista Elementary School District. It issued 400 layoff notices, yet expects to lose 125 teachers this year to retirements, resignations, family leaves and moves out of the area, said Tom Cruz, Chula Vista's assistant superintendent for human resources. Attrition and retirements will continue to drive demand to fill the 1,500 teaching jobs in his district.
“There will be jobs,” Cruz said.
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Message from Over 100 School Superintendents, Parents, and Kids on Capitol Steps: Failure to Fund Education in California Budget Would Be a Failure of Our Values
By Frank D. Russo
 The steps on all four sides of the State Capitol in Sacramento got a lot of attention yesterday. Citizens from across the state held back to back rallies on matters pertaining to the California budget, education, social services, juvenile incarceration, and pesticide spraying for moths.
But the biggest of the day was a bit unusual—over 40 Superintendents of Public Instruction from Los Angeles County and 100 statewide joined parents, teachers, and school kids to deliver a message to the legislature and the Governor to not balance the California state budget by cutting education. Think the state budget is a boring topic—or that it’s all about numbers? You should have heard these education experts, charged with the responsibility to make it all work, talk passionately about their mission. More than one of these leaders from Los Angeles County told the crowd about how they had struggled and improved schools that had failing our kids—some to the point that they now receive statewide recognition—and how they will not allow this to go down the drain with what one called “sine wave budgeting.”
Darlene Robles, Superintendent of the Los Angeles County Office of Education started her remarks noting that “It’s not often that we see Superintendents coming forward.” She then gave some startling figures about California in comparison with other states:
“When we compare out school system to those across the country, we have 30% fewer teachers in our classrooms…. We have 50% less school administrators than school districts across the country and 80% less counselors.”
She continued, “That’s shameful, when were the 8th largest economy in the world.” Referring to California’s level of funding based on the cost of living, she said, “To be 46th is just not acceptable.”
Robles concluded: “all of us know that there isn’t a legislator across this state that did not run on the platform that they would support public education. And it’s not only supporting public education during the good times—it’s supporting public education during the tough times. That’s when character counts.”
By the time Jack O’Connell, California’s state Superintendent of Public Instruction, made his way through the crowd to speak, he was greeted with thunderous applause and a warm hug. He fired up the crowd, telling them what they already knew—but his words were clearly destined for those in legislative session inside the building and to Governor Schwarzenegger, who was in Fairfield, delivering a speech on carpenter apprenticeship programs. He charged the Governor with an “abdication of one’s responsibility to set values and priorities” in proposing a 10% across the board set of budget cuts and characterized the $4.8 billion of cuts to education as a “hostile suspension of Prop 98,” noting that the voters in passing that measure had supported educational funding and had confirmed that priority 3 years ago—a reference to their rejection of a ballot measure in Schwarzenegger’s special election of 2005 that would have weakened it.
O’Connell was just one of the speakers who tied education to our future, our economy as a state, to reductions in imprisonment and crime, and to moral values. He said: “If you want to invest in the future, you invest in public education. If you want to shortchange the future, then you shortchange education. The cuts being proposed would be devastating to education. It would be a great step backwards.”
He directly challenged the Governor and Republicans on the framing of this issue: “We don’t have a spending problem. Our problem is with our priorities. When you hear people say we have a spending problem, you tell them we have a values problem. We have a problem with or priorities. That is why we need to make sure that the public policy document for the state of California is one that invests in the future.”
O’Connell then explained the numbers in another way: “The governor’s budget proposes $800 less per student. Look at that in terms of a classroom. You’re looking at about $25,000 taken out of every single classroom in the state of California. Your average elementary school—take away $400,000. Your average middle school, its about $1 million, and your typical high sized high school its about $2 million less in terms of services they can really provide. I can guarantee you our class sizes will be dramatically increased. We’ll have fewer classes available. Fewer career technical education classes. Fewer counselors.”
He also skewered Schwarzenegger and others for lofty rhetoric that did not match their actions, in closing with these lines” “You’ve heard of No Child Left Behind? This budget leaves all of our children behind. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this was supposed to be the ‘Year of Education.’”
Folks are starting to show up on the steps to the Capitol. And they are going inside to demand action, in this case armed with petitions they asked legislators to sign, promising not to balance the budget on the backs of our kids in school.
Before the budget is passed, my bet is that there will be a lot of other folks making the trip to Sacramento. Some of these legislators will not be as far from those who elected them in their districts as they usually are beyond these steps where the budget is voted on.
Posted on March 11, 2008 Return to top of page
Understanding California's School Funding Crisis: Why it's happening, what it means, and how it can be resolved” is our site of the day
Yesterday, an on-line briefing for California media was webcast live from UC Berkeley on California’s educational financing-- “Understanding California's School Funding Crisis: Why it's happening, what it means, and how it can be resolved.”
This may be one of the best encapsulations of this California budget issue with nuances about a welter of statistics that are out there. You don’t have to be a member of the media to watch this program and learn how the proposed cuts will affect students, teachers, and schools. It is now archived for viewing.
The briefing lasts about an hour and a half. The panelists are experts and know their subject backwards and forwards.
John Fensterwald, editorial writer at the San Jose Mercury News, and author of the education blog on the Merc, “Educated Guess” moderated.
Joining him in delivering presentations and then answering questions afterwards were:
• Elizabeth Hill, California’s legislative analyst, on her on her alternative to the Governor’s proposal for 10 percent across the board cuts.
• Goodwin Liu, assistant professor of law, UC Berkeley Law School, and co-author of a new report on school finance reform and on a new way of thinking about school funding, and
• Rick Pratt, associate executive director, California School Boards Association, on how the proposed budget cuts will affect students, teachers and schools.
You will be able to understand the cuts to education from various benchmark levels including those guaranteed by Prop 98 now California’s Constitution, from last year’s level, in the Governor’s proposed budget, and in the LAO’s proposal as well. Also, how they fit in with the calendar—with the state passing it’s budget including educational funding for localities after those localities have sent out layoff notices and after they have adopted what turn out to be tentative budgets.
The panel discusses at budget alternatives, including a major new proposal to reform the school finance system in “Getting Beyond the Facts,” co-authored by Professor Liu along with Alan Bersin, a member of the California State Board of Education and former California Secretary of Education, and Michael Kirst, a former President of the California State Board of Education.
“Getting Beyond the Facts” was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It builds on studies conducted last year by Stanford University's Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice, which found the state's school finance system "fundamentally unfair."
It finds the current finance system is "flawed" and fails to help students-and schools-reach performance goals set by the state. According to Liu, low-income students in high-poverty areas don't get adequate resources and nearly all students "suffer from a system that fails to support academic achievement."
The report finds that school districts receive revenues through complex formulas that, as a whole, don't take into account student needs or the regional differences in the cost of providing education. Also it finds that the proliferation of about 80 different student aid programs generates costly compliance burdens, onerous paperwork, and regulatory overload that limit the ability of school officials to meet local needs.
Liu, Bersin, and Kirst propose a new school funding framework based on four principles:
• Revenue allocations should be guided by student needs. Dollars should be allocated so that all students, including English learners, low-income students, and students with disabilities, can meet state standards for academic achievement.
• Revenue allocations should be adjusted for regional cost differences. California is a large state with tremendous diversity. Education dollars need to have the same purchasing power from region to region, especially when it comes to hiring and retaining high-quality teachers.
• The system as a whole needs to be simple, transparent, and easily understood by legislators, school officials, and the public.
• Reforms should apply to new money going forward, without reducing any district's current funding level.
Kudos and thanks to the California Media Collaborative--a new non-profit initiative for enhancing coverage of key California issues—sorely needed in this era of shrinking traditional media covering our state. And also to the co-sponsors-- the Commonwealth Club of California, the Education Writers Association, and the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at UC Berkeley Law School.
The California Progress Report
Posted on April 03, 2008 Return to Top of Page
Californians upset by school funding cut plan
Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, March 20, 2008
A hundred garbage cans line the streets of Alameda. Each holds a student, a teacher, a custodian - or another expendable soul from a local school.
"If they trash the schools, kids would be trashed too," said Ben Holmes, 7, explaining with a first-grader's clarity why he was standing in a gray trash bin on the corner of Park and Central earlier this week.
For drama, it's hard to beat a child in a garbage can.
And drama is what educators say they need to show their outrage at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to cut $5.5 billion from schools and colleges. The cuts would wipe out nearly 70 percent of the state's remaining $8 billion budget gap and wipe out school quality as well, they say.
If approved by the Legislature, the cuts to education would mean slashing programs and firing thousands of teachers and counselors at a time when federal law demands that schools raise scores or face consequences.
Not since the 2005 special election - when Schwarzenegger caught the wrath of teachers, nurses and firefighters with an array of anti-union ballot measures - have education advocates been so frothed up. For example:
Six hundred students marched out of Novato High earlier this week to protest the cuts. Hundreds of teachers held pink balloons in a raucous San Francisco rally recently to oppose pink-slip layoff warnings to more than 10,000 California teachers. And hundreds of principals and superintendents marched on Sacramento last week, warning that class size will mushroom if teachers are forced out.
"There have been close to a hundred rallies, protests and press conferences across the state - and definitely more to come," said Robin Swanson, a public relations strategist hired by the Education Coalition, which represents the interests of educators, parents and school board members.
The Education Coalition won't say how much money it's pouring into the effort. "We have all agreed to do what it takes," said Rick Pratt, assistant executive director of the California School Boards Association. "Defeating a "cuts-only" budget is our top priority."
Hiring Swanson just days after Schwarzenegger proposed his austere budget in January was no coincidence: She's beaten him before.
It was Swanson who led the campaign against the governor's ill-fated ballot measures that voters trampled in 2005. Working with Kaufman Campaign Consultants, a well-connected Democratic campaign firm in Sacramento, Swanson has been hailed as a rising star for handing upset victories to her clients and attracting press like a magnet.
But saving school funding will be her biggest challenge yet.
"We want no cuts," Swanson said. "We expect the legislators to do their jobs and come up with creative solutions."
Two big hurdles
Standing in her way are the seemingly insurmountable forces of a worsening economy and the unwillingness of Republican lawmakers - and former nemesis Schwarzenegger - to raise taxes. So Swanson is relying on people to keep on waving signs, making noise - and dumping kids and teachers into garbage cans - to change lawmakers' minds.
"I was brought on to coordinate and generate rallies across the state," Swanson said. "But what's happened - which is what you hope happens, but rarely does - is these things start generating themselves. We're trying not to step on each other because there's so much enthusiasm."
She mentioned two fathers who walked 39 miles to Sacramento from Vacaville to highlight their opposition to the cuts.
"That's not something I'd ask people to do - but they're doing it on their own," Swanson said. "There's an energy around this. When it starts snowballing and happening on its own, you know the issue has taken root."
It's snowballing in Alameda, where education advocates persuaded the local garbage company to join the campaign: "School athletics are too valuable to throw away!" read the sign on Johnny Larrabe's garbage truck.
"We have had enough!" protest organizer Brooke Briggance told demonstrators outside of Alameda High.
Elementary music teacher Bonnie Nelson Duffey listened from an unusual vantage point: "I'm in this garbage can because my position is being cut - unless the Legislature decides children should not be thrown away."
Universities, too, are protesting with "budget fight-back meetings" at CSU campuses, alumni are touting UC's benefits to state lawmakers, and community college students have also vowed to march.
"The goal is to convince the Legislature and the governor that the cuts they're suggesting would be extremely dangerous and harmful to our students," said David Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Association.
Proposed cuts have fans
It's a longshot.
Speaking in Pleasant Hill on Wednesday, Schwarzenegger said he couldn't give what he didn't have.
"I'm against education cuts. But I cannot promise and give them more money than we have ...," the governor said, according to a transcript released by his office. "If you raise taxes each time you have a revenue problem, eventually you get to 100 percent and everyone will leave the state."
But parents like Ross Moody of San Francisco say they won't stop showing up at rallies like the one last week in San Francisco, where the demonstrators waved pink balloons against pink slips for teachers.
"Our message is directed at the governor and the Legislature that we will not stand for this attack on education," Moody said.
But are pink balloons and teachers in trash bins enough to persuade people like Bob Huff? He's a Southern California Republican on the Assembly Education Committee whose vote could be crucial in getting the two-thirds majority needed to pass a budget.
"In my district," he said, "I'm a hero if I'm standing up to the teachers union."
So while some state lawmakers are joining protesters to show their opposition to the education cuts, Huff and his Republican colleagues aren't among them.
Counting the cuts
Public education is being asked to plug nearly 70 percent of the state's remaining $8 billion deficit. Here's the breakdown of proposed cuts:
-- K-12 schools: $4.4 billion-- Community colleges: $484 million
-- UC: $332 million-- CSU: $313 million
-- Total: $5.5 billion
Coalition roster
Here are the Education Coalition members:
-- Association of California School Administrators (ACSA)-- California Association of School Business Officials (CASBO)
-- California County Superintendents Educational Services Association (CCSESSA)-- California Federation of Teachers (CFT-AFL-CIO)
-- California School Boards Association (CSBA)-- California School Employees Association (CSEA)
-- California State PTA-- California Teachers Association (CTA)
-- Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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FUNDING EDUCATION
Proposed school cuts set up standoff
Democrats push tax hike; GOP legislators oppose it
By Ed Mendel
U-T SACRAMENTO BUREAU March 16, 2008
Parents, teachers anxious over proposed cuts
SACRAMENTO – Democratic legislators, who have long wanted to get more money for underfunded California schools, think they have a historic opportunity to push for a tax increase.
Facing a huge budget shortfall, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed deep school-funding cuts, triggering a wave of alarming layoff notices to teachers last week – and providing an issue that can be used to rally support for education.
A push by Democrats for a major tax increase faces stiff opposition from Republicans, who blocked a $1.2 billion tax increase for oil producers last week in a preliminary skirmish in the Assembly.
Julio Calderon (center), a ninth-grader at Lincoln High School, marched in a protest over proposed budget cuts on Imperial Avenue in San Diego Friday.
But Democrats are planning a long campaign to build public support for a tax increase to aid schools, hoping to pry loose a few Republican votes needed for passage in the Legislature or perhaps build support for a ballot measure in November.
The governor and the four legislative leaders usually negotiate a budget for the new fiscal year that begins on July 1, often with lengthy deadlocks that have delayed a new spending plan until as late as early September.
But Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, said this year Assembly Democrats, who are planning to develop a full budget proposal in a “summit” meeting March 26-27 in Sacramento, will take a different path.
“We are not going to do this the way we typically do it, where come June and July we sit in a big room in a 'Big Five' meeting and negotiate a budget,” Núñez said last week.
“It's not going to happen that way this time,” the speaker said. “We are going to be having public hearings. We are going to have a conversation with Californians about their values and priorities. And we are going to have a fight about how to best balance this budget.”
Schwarzenegger's proposed budget is based on no tax increase and a 10 percent across-the-board cut in spending increases required to meet inflation and other increased costs. The reduction to education spending would be nearly $4.4 billion.
A coalition of school groups has already run a six-week campaign of radio ads opposing school cuts. A coalition member, the California Teachers Association, has a political war chest that could fund television ads.
Members of the Education Coalition are planning what sounds like a political-style campaign, with one-on-one talks, presentations to groups and public rallies.
“Throughout the spring, there is going to be a flood of contacts,” said Bob Wells, executive director of the Association of California School Administrators.
Coalition members say they are hearing from parents and others who want to protect the schools.
“That is one thing that is different from past budget years – the level of spontaneous budget activity,” said Rick Pratt of the California School Boards Association. “There is a grass-roots uprising out there.”
Teacher Edward Moller (left) fears cuts at Lincoln High, where Victor Morales Jr. (center) and Tim Groenendal are students.
The Republican governor had wanted to make this the Year of Education. But a weakening economy helped create a $16 billion budget shortfall – trimmed roughly in half last month by borrowing, deferrals and some cuts.
An 18-member governor's Advisory Committee on Education Excellence released a report Friday that was expected to be a blueprint for the reforms that would be sought by the governor.
Now Schwarzenegger is asking his education secretary, Dave Long, to hold town hall meetings throughout the state this year to try to build consensus for reform.
The governor said he is willing to consider the report's recommendation for additional school funding spread out over the next decade, when the state budget improves, but only if there are reforms.
He said more money for schools “must be tied to tangible reforms, because more money without reform would be a waste.”
The committee recommends streamlining bureaucracy, more local control and more accountability.
Pink slips have been issued to teachers during past budget shortfalls, only to be mostly discarded as legislators found a way to minimize school cuts. For now, few are counting on that scenario playing out this year.
“I've been through several bad budgets, and this is by far the worst,” said Pratt, a veteran of more than two decades at the Capitol.
Schwarzenegger's plan would require a $4 billion cut next year in the Proposition 98 school-funding guarantee – a provision approved by voters in 1988 that the Education Coalition was formed to protect. (In addition, more than $300 million in cuts would come from other education funds.)
Proposition 98 funding for schools and community colleges is scheduled to grow to $59.6 billion in the coming fiscal year, from $57.7 billion this year. Schwarzenegger's proposal would cut the funding to $55.6 billion.
For schools, average per-pupil spending focused on the classroom would drop from $8,558 this year to $8,458 next year. In broad terms, a classroom with 25 students would lose $2,500.
Democrats say per-pupil funding in California, once among the highest in the nation, has fallen to near the bottom among states. Republicans say Democrats are citing a faulty ranking by Education Week magazine.
During the last decade, per-pupil funding in California has remained flat when adjusted for inflation, according the nonpartisan legislative analyst. Meanwhile, Proposition 98 funding grew at roughly the same annual rate as state spending, 7 percent.
As the budget battle begins, Democrats are digging in to protect Proposition 98. And Republicans are equally adamant in opposing any tax increase.
Nearly all of the Republican legislators have gone to the trenches by signing a pledge to “oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes” that was distributed by Americans for Tax Reform, operated by influential Washington conservative Grover Norquist.
The lone exception is the lead Assembly Republican budget writer, Roger Niello of Fair Oaks. “I don't like to sign pledges,” said Niello, particularly ones that he has not written himself.
Democrats have not yet made a formal tax proposal to fully fund schools. Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata, D-Oakland, has mentioned a possible sales tax increase to raise about $5 billion.
With the rejection of the oil tax, Núñez has suggested that Assembly Democrats may propose a series of similar tax increases to keep pressure on the Republicans and the spotlight on the need for more school funding.
The last time a major tax increase was used to plug a budget hole was in 1991, when then-Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, pushed a $7 billion package including increases in sales, income and alcohol taxes.
Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman, R-Tustin, said recently he suspects that at some point, Democrats may offer increased funding for programs Republicans support, such as law enforcement, in exchange for votes for a tax increase.
“I think they think we are going to trade that for something,” said Ackerman. “But it's not trade bait.”
Wells, of the school administrators association, said he is hearing speculation that “some element of a solution could be placed on the November ballot.”
SignOnSanDiego.com
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FUNDING EDUCATION
Parents, teachers anxious over proposed cuts
They fear more setbacks for academics, services
By Maureen Magee
STAFF WRITER
March 16, 2008
It's more than water-cooler conversation. The fear and anxiety brought on by the state's education budget crisis are almost palpable.
Parents, students and teachers have staged rallies and sit-ins. Even schoolchildren have written letters to their elected representatives urging them to reject the governor's proposed budget.
Outside the organized protests and political campaigns, education funding is the topic of emotional conversations at schools, parks and coffee shops.
San Diego County school districts are planning to slash some $360 million from their budgets and have sent out hundreds of layoff notices to meet the governor's proposed spending cuts.
If the spending plans are adopted, schools will open in the fall having regressed in the eyes of many teachers and parents.
“This just seems over the top,” said Melina Asbill, co-president of the PTA at Magnolia Elementary School in Carlsbad. “The state needs to put its priorities back in place.”
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for a $4.4 billion reduction to education funding statewide to meet California's projected $16 billion budget shortfall.
But it's too early to say how the state's finances will look once a final budget is submitted, something that may not happen until after school starts in September if the process is delayed, as some observers expect.
Until then, anxiety reigns.
Many school districts plan to save money by adding more children to classrooms in the earliest grades of elementary school that had been capped at 20 students. Nurses and librarians would be scarce at many campuses. And new teachers will face unemployment.
Will larger classes, no one to staff libraries and canceled summer school hurt the quality of education? The consequences of these cuts are still unknown.
What's more, the funding cuts would be hitting at a time when many schools face increased demands to improve under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
That law requires schools to show yearly improvement toward the goal of having 100 percent of students testing proficient on state math and English tests by 2013.
But cuts could affect more than academics. The loss of nurses and other positions could chip away at the social services provided to students.
Without school nurses, for example, lesser-trained office staffers would assume the responsibility of administering insulin shots to diabetics or recognizing the often-subtle signs of an allergic reaction. The nurses also say they are increasingly spending their time working with students who are depressed, suicidal or pregnant.
“It's not just about Band-Aids,” said Mary Magnuson, a campus nurse at Spreckels Bilingual Magnet School in University City. “There are children whose only health care is us.”
The San Diego Unified School District, the second-largest in the state, has sent pink slips to roughly one in 10 of its certificated base. More than 900 employees – mostly teachers hired after September 2002 – face unemployment.
That means schools in poor areas that historically do not attract veteran teachers would see a large portion of their faculties wiped out should the layoffs occur.
“We would lose at least half our staff,” said Edward Moller, a teacher at the newly rebuilt Lincoln High School in San Diego. “We want to be here, and we worked hard all year to build a connection with our community. Now this?”
Moller worked at a nearby charter school for eight years before he was hired to help open Lincoln last fall. But his experience at an independent charter campus doesn't count toward his seniority with the San Diego teachers union, which categorizes him as a new hire.
“There are a lot of people in my position,” Moller said. “People who care about the community who will be replaced by more experienced teachers who would rather work anywhere but Lincoln.”
SignOnSanDiego.com
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Proposed school budget cuts protested
Dozens of demonstrators march in Santa Ana in the kickoff of a series of events statewide in opposition to the governor's plan.
By David Haldane
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 14, 2008
About 70 demonstrators -- mostly parents, students and teachers -- marched through the streets of Santa Ana on Thursday, protesting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget cuts for California schools.
The gathering was one of about a dozen planned statewide in what organizers said was the kickoff of a series of events scheduled over the next several months in opposition to the $4.8 billion in education cuts proposed to offset the state's deficit.
"This is ridiculous," Randy Maynor, a member of the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the national grass-roots community-based group organizing the protests, told the crowd gathered at Lowell Elementary School.
"To allow this to happen is criminal; our kids deserve better than this. We don't have a spending problem; it's a morality problem."
Josue Vargas, the group's state coordinator, laid the problem directly at the governor's feet.
"I really hope he won't take money from education," Vargas said. "He's a successful guy -- he must know that education is the most important thing in life to succeed."
A spokesman for Schwarzenegger agreed that the governor understands the value of an education.
"He doesn't want to make these cuts any more than anyone else wants to make them," said press secretary Aaron McLear.
"But the alternative is raising taxes, and he doesn't believe that doing that solves the chronic instability of the budget. That's why we need budget reform, so that we don't have to put the kids through this roller coaster of instability every year."
At Lowell, where the protesters gathered, about 14 of the school's 40 teachers have been told they could be let go.
One of them, Silvia Macias, said that such an outcome would be devastating for students.
"It would raise the number of students in the lower grades from 20 to 30 per classroom," she said. "The quality of education will get worse; in this community we have lots of low-income immigrant families, and I don't know how we're going to succeed with the children."
Dolores Aguilera, 66, who has two grandchildren at the school, expressed other concerns as well.
"They will have to cut after-school programs, books, supplies -- it will have a big impact," she said. "There won't be as many children who graduate to go on to further education."
From Lowell, the protesters marched several blocks past Santa Ana High School to Heninger Elementary School, where they waved banners, chanted slogans and loudly acknowledged the honking of passing cars.
"I currently have 28 students; next year I may have 35," said third-grade teacher Raul Garcia.
To attract attention during the demonstration, he was beating on an African drum and blowing into a set of Peruvian flutes.
"It's just plain mathematics," he said. "The more kids you have, the less time you can spend with those who are at risk."
Nora Garcia, who teaches at another school and is unrelated, put it more starkly.
The proposed budget cuts, she said, "are anti-American. Our goal as a country is to move forward, but how are we going to stay No. 1 when we're cutting off our children's legs?"
david.haldane@latimes.com
From the Los Angeles Times Return to top of page
Spontaneous Flashpoints Erupt on What California State Budget Cuts Mean to Local Schools
By Frank D. Russo
Former Speaker of the U.S. House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill used to say that “all politics is local.”
This has never been more evident than what we are starting to see in our newspapers, on local television, and on the streets and campuses of communities throughout California on cuts to education. Cuts that start with the state and are seen in the cancellation of school programs and pink slips being handed out to teachers--from the Napa Valley to the Coachella Valley, in urban and rural districts, have led to walkouts and political action taken by students, some of whom are waving signs from street corners to honking passing motorists who are showing signs of support. Students, parents, and others who vote are showing up at local board of education meetings. Californians are now showing up in Sacramento on the steps of the Capitol and demanding action to keep cherished teachers at their local schools, and to save classes in subjects important to them, sports programs, counseling, and health programs.
It takes a lot to get California residents and voters interested in state public policy. But we may be on the cusp of something big here—of the magnitude of what led to Proposition 13 on property taxes in 1978 and the recall election in 2003 of Gray Davis that brought us Arnold Schwarzenegger as our Governor. In fact, when it comes to 2003, some are suggesting that Arnold is the same as Gray. If you have a couple of minutes, take a look at this local television news report and see how unhappy the Governor is with the comparison.
California is earthquake country and sometimes the ground moves slowly with a series of barely detectable minor quakes, but sometimes it shakes violently and new fault lines are seen. As the San Jose Mercury News put it:
“…there's no denying the emotional power generated by thousands of teacher pink slips in schools all over the state.
"It's difficult for people to grasp a debate over something as abstract as the budget," said Fred Silva, a budget expert and fiscal policy analyst at Beacon Economics. "But how much your public school is going to have for an arts program, or a reading program, is not abstract at all."
Californians as a General Principle Support Increased Funding of Education
Last May, we reviewed the Public Policy Institute of California’s extensive survey and said:
“When asked about whether the state should spend more money than it does now, the same amount, or less, strong majorities respond they want more spent on K-12 public education (72%)…
“In most of these areas, the numbers are nowhere close to any equivocation. Take K-12 education: 72% want more spent, 18% want the same amount spent, and miniscule 8% of Californians want less money spent. Likely voters want more spent by 65% to 12% who want less spent. Democrats are off the charts on this one, with 83% favoring more spending and 4% less. Even Republicans favor more spending by a margin of 51% to 17% for less--that's as close as it gets.”
But Most of the Time, Californians Do Not Pay Much Attention to the Budget
Every so often there is a poll of Californians with a question as to how closely they are following some state policy issue and the numbers are reported of the varying percentages of those who say they are following it, in the categories given by the pollster of something like “very closely, somewhat closely, not all that closely, or not at all.” The Field Poll conducted one such survey during the height of last year’s budget stalemate and the almost record setting delay in enacting a budget.
Field found in August of last year that just one in eight (12%) paying "a lot of attention" to the lawmakers' efforts to pass a state budget. Another one-third (37%) say they are giving some attention to the matter. However, a majority (51%) allow how they are paying "only a little" (34%) or "no attention" (17%) to the governor's and state legislature's attempts to pass a budget.
In fact, most Californians do not know where the state gets most of its revenue and where it spends its revenue. We wrote on May 31, 2007 about a Public Policy Institute of California Survey
that had just been released:
“Most Do Not Know Where the State Spends and Raises Most of Its Money
“K-12 education is by far and away the largest item in the budget, accounting for almost halv of the pie. While 30% of those polled correctly identified this as the largest item, 28% thought it was health and human services and 23% thought it was the correctional system. 10% thought it was higher education. Only 9% professed to not know. Likely voters responded essentially the same as non voters. A full 61% of Californians got this one wrong.
“The same result is had for the largest source of state revenues, where 31% of Californians and 37% of likely voters correctly chose the state personal income tax, but sizeable numbers of even voters (54%) wrongly picked either the sales tax, corporate tax, or even the motor vehicle fees, as the largest generator of funds.
“Combine the budget spending and tax pop quiz here and only 10% get both questions right.”
Why This Year is Different and There May be a Political Tsunami if Education is Seiously Cut
What makes this ever the more different from last year’s budget cuts, where there were few political penalties meted out by the voters are a combination of factors:
• The legislature has been able to postpone this day or reckoning and the real pain, but cannot do so this year unless taxes are raised. The Governor’s drastic set of cuts, including closing state parks and the like demonstrate that there are no easy cuts here to the state budget—certainly ones that amount to anything significant. The low hanging fruit has been plucked and the painful cuts have already begun with the package the legislature passed and sent to the Governor for this year’s budget with an effect of about $7 billion for next year. At least $8 billion more remains in the gap between revenue and the budget.
• The understanding of this is reaching local communities and voters are beginning to understand the real effects of budget cuts as pink slips go out to teachers last week and before the March 15 deadline.
• Cuts are affecting Republican as well as Democratic Districts.
• Students, who are starting to vote in record numbers with the Obama awakening are seeing that this affects them, and are beginning to protest the cuts in their communities and rallying parents and others to their side.
Consider the first major protest of these budget cuts, which came from students in the usually sleepy island town of Alameda who walked out of classes. This is what they said in their own words:
"Alameda is being hit really, really hard,"said Ian Merrifield, student body president at Encinal High School. "What we need to do is come together to show Sacramento that we don't accept this."
“Nichole Lopez, an Alameda High School student, said California's economy remains among the world's strongest — and certainly robust enough to fund public schools.
But more importantly, just take a look at a few of the articles in the last week from around the state and you will see that there is rumbling is coming not just from Democratic districts, but those of Republicans as well.
From Ramona, in Eastern San Diego County, one of the most Republican areas in the state: “Protests launched over plan to cut high school's agriculture program:”
“The agricultural program at Ramona High School, offered continuously since 1957, and its Future Farmers of America affiliation have been targeted by the school board for elimination.
“That has fans of agriculture in the semirural town hopping mad.
“About two dozen students and supporters of the ag program protested yesterday afternoon along Main Street, and plan to continue doing so for several more days.
“The kids are in an uproar and the community is in an uproar,” said Kimberley Smith, the agriculture teacher at the school.
“Agriculture is a big part of Ramona. Ramona loves agriculture.”
“That was evident yesterday as motorists responded by the hundreds with honking horns as they drove past the picketers holding signs that read “Honk. Save Ramona AG” and “Preserve Ramona Culture, Support Ramona Ag Program.”
From nearby Escondido, also Republican ground zero in the state:
"Dozens of San Pasqual High School students say Ben Stampfl is a great teacher and they don't think he should lose his job, which is in jeopardy because of plans to trim $3 million from the Escondido high school district's 2008-09 budget.
"Students from Stampfl's Advanced Placement U.S. history class said his commitment, passion and excitement for teaching spurred them to turn out at Tuesday night's board meeting to show their support for him.
"Eden Hesse and Mitzi Guevara were among students who held colorful signs and sat respectfully in the audience as their spokeswoman, JoLynn Earl, extolled their teacher's dedication to education. Stampfl, a first-year teacher, was not at the meeting.
"JoLynn said that although students understood that teacher layoffs are inevitable, such cuts are harder to accept when it means losing a favorite, dedicated teacher."
From behind the Orange Curtain, “Capistrano Unified parents plan trek to Sacramento today”:
"They are definitely hearing from us big time," said Kim Anderson, legislative chair for the Capistrano Unified Council of PTSAs. "This isn't the right way to balance the budget. It isn't right for kids in California."
From Stanislaus County, “ Anxiety rising in schools”:
“In school districts across Stanislaus County, nurses, counselors, teachers and custodians are at risk of having their positions cut. Administrators are freezing travel expenses and offering incentives for teachers to retire early. Some are looking into increasing class sizes or combining bus routes….
“Modesto City Schools' Board of Education approved $11.6 million in cuts last month, including eliminating junior high librarians, reducing nurse positions, and eliminating the college-preparatory AVID program for low-income and minority students at one junior high and four high schools.
“The board endured a nearly three-hour tongue-lashing from about 700 people before voting on the cuts. They ultimately voted against cutting elementary and junior high music teachers and increasing kindergarten class sizes.
"We took a lot of heat," said Chris Flesuras, associate superintendent of human resources. "We just happened to (make our cuts) a week before everybody else. It's scary, really, because I think most districts aren't going to be able to make those kinds of cuts."
“Local administrators say the governor's proposed cuts harken back to the era of Proposition 13, a controversial ballot initiative passed in 1978 that capped property tax increases statewide and resulted in a dramatic reduction in the amount of local property tax revenue available for schools. California's national ranking in per-pupil spending has declined ever since.
"Here we are, with California the seventh-largest economy in the world, and we're 46th in the nation in what we spend per student," said Steve Menge, assistant superintendent of administrative services for Patterson schools.”
Tomorrow, they’ll also be in Sacramento.
From Napa County, “An unhappy math exercise: Local schools look at layoffs, cuts to meet reduced budget”:
“Fourth-grade science teacher Terry Asano pleaded for her job at the podium Thursday night, bursting into tears during her address to the Napa Valley Unified School District board.
“I’m a role model,” she said, wiping back tears, “and I’d like to continue to be that.” ,,,
“At the high school level, ninth-grade math and English classes would increase from 20 students to up to 36
“Elementary schools would no longer offer summer school
“The district would eliminate its share of funding for athletics, changing the system to a “pay-to-play” method.
From Gilroy, an agricultural community: “What can you do about state budget cuts to education?”
“If Californians truly believe that the state's current and future economic vitality depends on a well-educated workforce, then today is the day to let Gov. Schwarzenegger and our elected state representatives know that the draconian cuts to school districts in the proposed state budget are unacceptable. …
“So now valuable staff time, time that should be used to improve student achievement in our classrooms, is being used instead to come up with a plan for budget cuts and revenue enhancements.
“…there is already a shortage of qualified teachers especially in the areas of math, science, and Many motivated and special education, and the problem is expected to increase.”
From Stockton:
“In the end, PTA leader and mother of four kids in Lincoln Unified schools Heidi Orihuela said, it's important that lawmakers stand up for education. "Let's not be chicken," she said, holding a rubber chicken for effect.”
From the Coachella Valley, as reported in the Desert Sun, “ Coachella Valley group protests cuts to education budgets at local districts”:
The budget cut "is not in keeping with the will of the people of California," said Neil Lingle, a Desert Sands board member, in a speech to members of the media. "We cannot sit passively while Sacramento makes adverse decisions for our children.
"The answer is not on the back of students."
Finally, from the Simi Valley: “Ventura Co. School Leaders Bemoan Budget Cuts--Worst in 15 years, says superintendent”:
The Ventura County Superintendent of Schools is quoted as saying:"I've never seen cuts of this size in 15 years," Weis said, adding that more money is spent on prisons in California than on state universities. "Investing in prisons does not grow a state economy."
The comments of Ventura Unified School District Superintendent Trudy Arriaga are reported in this manner:
“Within three years, California dropped from No. 44 in the nation for per pupil spending to No. 46, Arriaga said.
"Are we waiting for the big 50?" she asked.
"I propose this budget leaves all children behind," Arriaga said in reference to the federally mandated No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. "It's not about failing schools but how we as adults are failing children."
“Paul Chatman, president of the California School Boards Association, said that while classroom size will increase, electives in middle school and high school will be cut.
"Every child in this state has been devalued by $800," Chatman said. "We have a Legislature that has their foot stuck in the mud.”…
“Chatman suggested raising taxes, a move Republicans in the state Legislature have long opposed.
"We need to run this state as a business," Chatman said. "(No one) opens a business and says, 'I will never raise prices.'"
“Even longtime anti-tax guru Jere Robbins of Thousand Oaks believes a tax hike may be in store for Californians.”
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Contrast: More money, more problems for state
By Senator Dave Cogdill, as published in the San Diego Union Tribune on March 14, 2008
When my Republican colleagues and I state that California has a spending problem and not a revenue problem, it is easily supported by facts.
The Democrats are going to criticize any significant effort to reduce state spending with predictable “Chicken Little” rhetoric. They will describe doomsday scenarios about the irreparable harm that will befall our schools if education funding is cut. They will grandstand with hyperbolic stories of senior citizens being kicked out of their wheelchairs if we dare touch the Medi-Cal budget. These emotional ploys simply are not supported by facts.
Fact: Expenditures have increased by $25 billion since 2003. This raises the question, “What do we have in the way of positive results to show for it?”
Fact: Throwing more money at a failing school system does not improve education. K-12 education is arguably the most contentious issue during budget negotiations. Certainly, we all want our schools to be well funded and provide safe environments that are conducive to learning. Republicans want California's children to succeed just as much as Democrats do. Where we part ways is in accepting the fallacy that pumping more money into the education budget will necessarily result in better schools.
Fact: Education and per-pupil spending are continually rising. Since 2003, K-12 spending increased by $7 billion. Accordingly, per-pupil spending rose significantly from $8,960 in 2002-03 to $10,612 by 2005-06, according to the National Education Association. According to California's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, this places California right in the middle of the pack (25th) nationwide. Moreover, according to the National Education Association, California's teachers are the highest paid nationwide.
Fact: California's schools are failing California's children. The outcome has been underwhelming to say the least. The most recent national assessment of educational progress ranks California's fourth-graders 47th in the nation in math – down from 45th in 2003 – and 48th in reading – down from 47th in 2003. Similarly, the state's eighth-graders fell from 44th to 45th in math. 
Fact: California's kids are giving up on California's schools. Consider California's shamefully high dropout rate. A report issued by the California Dropout Research Project observes that only two-thirds of California high school students graduate on time. Fully 170,000 of the more than 520,000 children who entered the ninth grade in 2002 dropped out or otherwise failed to graduate with the class of 2006. All the while, enrollment – the actual number of children requiring a public education – has decreased by 74,000 students over the past five years. In short, we're spending more dollars on fewer kids and achieving less.
Fact: Spending on health and human services programs keeps increasing but the level of service has dropped. Over the same five-year period, spending on health and human services programs increased to the tune of $6.5 billion. Here again, spending has not translated into results. The CalWORKS program, ostensibly intended to transition individuals from welfare to work, is failing miserably, allowing recipients and their families to continue receiving benefits far beyond the five years to which they are supposed to be limited by federal law. Additionally, state health benefits have expanded to include non-necessities such as acupuncture and chiropractic care for Medi-Cal patients. Inefficiencies and wastefulness in these programs prevent California dollars from serving the people intended.
Fact: While the Democrats spread the fearful message of Draconian budget cuts, there are billions sitting, unused, in local coffers. Incredibly, local First Five commissions throughout California are sitting on massive reserves, apparently content to let more than $2 billion gather dust. Is it not the First Five program's mission to improve the lives of children under 5? It is nothing short of unconscionable that the state has not forced these commissions to provide health programs to the children they were created to serve.
Fact: Spending has far outpaced inflation and population growth – had it remained in check, we would have a $6.3 billion surplus, instead of a $16 billion deficit. Quite simply, government has grown virtually unconstrained over these past five years, without any real accountability. Democrats cannot summarily dismiss reductions without recognizing, as Republicans do, that we must expect results for the tax dollars we spend. The facts speak for themselves – spending increases do not amount to better government services. Instead of continually spending more, we need to spend more wisely.
Last year, a Public Policy Institute of California poll found that 89 percent of Californians believe that state government wastes money. Evidently, Californians know instinctively what Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento refuse to acknowledge: The state has sufficient money to provide ample services. The ultimate answer is not more money to make government run effectively, but a more effective government to use taxpayer money more efficiently. From Senator Cogdill
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This story is taken from Sacbee / Politics
Dan Walters: Budget gap spotlights public school funding
By Dan Walters - dwalters@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Inevitably, every debate about California's deficit-riddled budget morphs into a fight over how much money we should be spending on public schools and how that money should be spent.
It's happening again as the Capitol's political figures wrestle with a deficit that's worse than usual and as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes – semiseriously – a $4.8 billion whack in state aid to schools.
This month, as required by law, local schools are sending tentative layoff notices to thousands of teachers who would lose their jobs under the governor's proposals. Democratic legislative leaders are insisting that they will absolutely refuse to enact them, however, and dozens of school superintendents and other educators invaded the Capitol on Monday to demand that Schwarzenegger's cuts be rejected.
Public education is the budget battlefield not only because it's the state's largest single public program and consumes about 35 percent of the general fund, but because the state's 6 million public school students are a microcosm of its social and economic trends, their schools are beset by poor high school graduation rates and academic test scores, and the state is near the bottom among states in per-pupil spending.
All of those factors generate ceaseless circular debate in academic, political and civic circles over whether schools need more money and if so, how that money should be raised and spent. Early last year, a 1,700-page series of studies overseen by Stanford University concluded that while the schools need billions of more dollars, just spending more money without, as one study leader put it, "systemic and fundamental reform," would be useless.
At the time, Schwarzenegger and other Capitol figures proclaimed that 2008 would be the "year of education" in which long-range policy and financial decisions would be made, but as the state's fiscal situation deteriorated, the battle shifted to whether school money should be reduced to close the deficit.
"This has been the year of education evisceration," Jack O'Connell, the state superintendent of schools, said as local superintendents rallied Monday before heading into the Capitol for one-on-one lobbying. Their targets were mostly Republicans who have joined Schwarzenegger in resisting new taxes to balance the budget – even as the governor edges away from that position by saying he wants to close tax loopholes to give schools more money.
"We don't have a spending problem," O'Connell – a potential candidate for governor in 2010 – told the superintendents, intentionally parodying the Republicans' refrain. "The problem is with our priorities." He called Schwarzenegger's proposed school cuts "abdication of a responsibility to set the values and set the priorities" and added, "This budget must be stopped."
Given the line-in-the-sand attitude of the Legislature's majority Democrats, it's already been stopped. The question remains, however, whether reducing school aid would be the disaster O'Connell and other education advocates claim, or, indeed, whether there's any correlation between spending and academic performance.
Cutting school financing, as Schwarzenegger proposes, certainly doesn't make the task of improving performance any easier but, as the Stanford researchers implied, merely spending money doesn't, unto itself, guarantee a better outcome. There is virtually no statistical correlation between a state's level of per-pupil spending and its standing in national academic tests or high school graduation rates.
Other factors such as poverty, peer and familial pressure, and cultural values all play roles in academic outcomes that merely spending more money doesn't alter. Unfortunately, however, the Capitol is incapable of debating education in any terms other than money.
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Teachers brace for massive layoffs
Budget shortfall spurs warning letters
By Mike Zapler and Harrison Sheppard, MediaNews Sacramento Bureau
Article Last Updated: 03/08/2008 09:19:39 PM PST
SACRAMENTO - Late this week, notices will go out to thousands of teachers across California informing them that they may be out of a job in a few months - the first and clearest indication to many families of the kind of pain that California's massive budget deficit could inflict.
The layoff letters, which by law must go out by Saturday, could number in the tens of thousands, school officials warn.
Although it's possible, if not likely, that many of the warnings won't result in actual pink slips, the notices could be a flash point in the debate about how to close an $8 billion budget deficit - and what the fallout might be for California residents.
"It's difficult for people to grasp a debate over something as abstract as the budget," said Fred Silva, a budget expert and fiscal policy analyst at Beacon Economics.
"But how much your public school is going to have for an arts program or a reading program is not abstract at all."
The legislative budget debate this year is following a familiar formula: Democrats generally vow to protect education and social services for the poor, even if it means raising taxes; Republicans decry overspending and pledge to block a tax increase at all costs.
Democrats are hoping that the prospect of fewer teachers in classrooms is something almost any family with children can appreciate, even as Republicans accuse them of engaging in fear-mongering.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and GOP lawmakers contend that cuts to education remain negotiable and that any made to schools can be managed in ways to reduce impacts in most classrooms. Los Angeles Unified School District is expected to lose at least $460 million next year because of the state budget crisis.
LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer III has decided the district will not lay off any permanent teachers, but it might cut administrative staff, district spokeswoman Ellen Morgan said.
On March 15, the district will send out notices to all administrators, both at schools and in off-site administrative offices. At this time, there has been no decision on how many jobs will be cut, Morgan said.
But Democrats are doing everything they can to call attention to the potential cuts to spending for kindergarten through 12th grade that Schwarzenegger proposed in his January budget.
His plan would give schools $4.4 billion less than they're slated to receive next year - cutting per-pupil spending by about 10 percent, or an average of $786, according to an analysis by the California Budget Project.
In recent weeks, school advocates have staged news conferences around the state, and school administrators are planning to be in the Capitol on Monday to protest the governor's plan.
"This is where you get a chance to see what these cuts actually mean," said Sandra Jackson of the California Teachers Association. "It's where the chalk meets the blackboard, so to speak."
Schwarzenegger and Republican lawmakers insist they're not out to harm schools, and they say budget talks over the next weeks and months could forestall some of the Draconian cuts that critics fear.
"Our negotiations will start very soon ... so we can solve all of those problems as quickly as possible because what concerns me is that on March 15th the education community has to make serious decisions about should they lay off teachers or not," Schwarzenegger said during an appearance in Oakland on Friday.
The governor repeated his plea to reform the budget so schools aren't held captive to the swings in tax revenue that California perpetually faces.
Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines, R-Fresno, accused Democrats and advocates of using the threat of teacher layoffs to score political points.
"I think they do this to scare a lot of people, and it's not the healthiest thing to do," Villines said. "There are ways to do this that do not hurt the classrooms."
After the required warning notices, final notices must go out before May 15 for any layoffs, which would take effect July1.
"The only thing that would forestall these layoffs," said Bob Wells, executive director of the Association of California School Administrators, "is if legislators stand up and say they're not going along."
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