“This is the civil rights movement of our times.” “We are bleeding to death.” “This is a public safety issue.” These comments were spoken by members of Supervisor Dave Cortese’s contingent that rode up to Sacramento yesterday to make a bold statement about the lack of funding for public education.
The lack of political will on the part of both Democrats and Republicans to reach a compromise to increase state revenue will have a cataclysmic effect on this generation of students currently enrolled in our schools. None of us can be proud of the fact that California in the 2009-10 budget will be 50th out of 50 states in per-pupil funding. This is truly the civil rights issue of our day.
Supervisor Cortese and his staff, organizing with the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, deserve enormous credit for planning and executing a trip focused on the decline of public education funding, and the resultant layoffs of teachers, counselors, librarians, nurses, administrators, instructional aides, receptionists and custodians. Visual and performing arts programs, AP classes, gifted programs, and transportation funding are being slashed as I write this column.
There was general consensus among the 125 travelers that this two-year 9 percent total drop in school funding (according to the Governor’s Department of Finance) will be ruinous to our state’s future and economic vitality.
Estelle LeMieux, CTA Legislative Affairs, told the Santa Clara County community leaders that in California, we have First World standards and Third World funding. The 10:30 meeting of the Conference Committee on the Budget (a newly created 10-member bicameral committee) heard budget figures from Ana Matosantos, Department of Finance, on how dour the situation really is.
What was clear to Supervisor Cortese, and he so stated to Assembly Member Wilmer Amina Carter, is that the art of compromise and the give and take that use to exist for the common good has been lost in Sacramento. Graduating seniors from East Side Union High School District exhorted from the dais in Room #447 that students from poorer districts, many of them Latino, will incur more of the harm from these devastating cuts. This is primarily due, they eloquently explained, to the ability of parents from wealthier districts to fund the gap between the money that comes from Sacramento and the cost of a first class education.
“Each new budget enactment results in cuts that are more devastating than the last round. Based on these actions, any changes to either the 2008-09 or 2009-10 budgets would likely include more cuts to education…While federal (stimulus) dollars will be beneficial, they are limited and don’t come close to the level of cuts districts are facing”, states a California School Boards Association press release dated May 21, 2009. How did we get to this most precarious and perilous point?
There is a lot of blame to go around, as we heard yesterday—from the wrath of term limits, to Proposition 13, to a Governor who has no political friends on either side of the aisle, to the two-thirds required super majority vote on the state budget.
We had strong, bold, and courageous leaders during the civil rights movement of the last century: Dr. Martin Luther King, Justice Thurgood Marshall, Cesar Chavez, and Robert Kennedy to name a few. In his last formal speech, on April 3, 1968, Dr. King said, “For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.”
It is right for us to work toward a system of funding public education so that every child—rich or poor; brown, black, or white; gifted or a child with special needs—has the same high quality education. All students must have access to music, visual and performing arts, sports, and a longer school day/year. No one in California has emerged, yet, to take the mantle as a true crusader for the civil rights of children in this new struggle for equity for all.
Is anyone out there? It is not too late to alter the course for all California’s children with a civil rights leader who galvanizes the energy that existed on the spring trip to Sacramento. Schools are an investment in our collective future. When will we realize their importance to the quality of our life.
Joseph,
Schools have not been singled out for the bad budget news. Did you realize that California is 49th out 50 when it comes to the quality of our roads and highways?
I imagine we’re dead last or near so on many of the measurements. Kinda’ makes you want to scratch your head in wonderment how our State and local governments could spend so damn much money and get so little in return.
I might add (for about the 100th time) that I’d feel some sympathy for our school administrators, faced with such a dire budget. But… and here it comes… when we have 50 some odd school districts within a quick drive, I feel nothing but anger. Until the school execs collapse that number down to a dozen or so, I simply don’t believe that they want anything but auto-pilot, status quo.
Greg wrote:“Kinda’ makes you want to scratch your head in wonderment how our State and local governments could spend so damn much money and get so little in return.”
Just go watch a CalTrans job for a few hours, Greg, and you’ll understand whay. Or pretty much any public edmployee job, where the work rules are such that the required production/day is so low that it’s a wonder anything gets done.
The Snata Clara County Courthouse on N. First Street has had a job going for MONTHS to repave the parking lot, do some plumbing work, and install security stuff that is quite unnecessary—wrought iron fences, bollards, etc. Today, a guy was re-working one of the bollards that was installed two weeks ago. They must have got some ridiculous Homeland Security grant or something.
The seats for the jury and the public in the courtrooms are falling apart in many courtrooms, but they dick around with a bunch of unnecessary stuff; most likely because they can’t spend the money where it’s needed, but only where the federales say they can.
We get lotsa pork, and suffer through without the necessities. That’s government at all levels.
Tea Parties aren’t enough.
Greg,
This isn’t about sympathy for administrators, but for our kids. They are the ones that are losing out on an education. Sure, consolidation would be nice, but in the meantime, what about all the kids that are being left behind? We don’t get a do-over with them. Either they get an education or they don’t. Even if you don’t care about the kids themselves, our society and economy will suffer if our population is less educated. Therefore, being 49th out of 50 in education spending is unconscionable, period.
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.. Are you serious? Mr. DiSalvo, we spend north of $60 billion dollars a year on education in this state – more than $11,000 a year per pupil. We are being bled to death by taxes. You want to raise my taxes further? Fine, but first prove to me that my existing dollars are being used efficiently and without waste. Help campaign for an honest, comprehensive audit of the state education budget and management practices by someone outside the public sector. Be a champion of implementing whatever changes and cost cutting actions are recommended.
Next, at least have the spine to be honest about what you want. You are asking to raise my taxes – to take more money away from my family. Using phrases such as “lack of will to reach a compromise on increasing state revenue” or “an investment in our collective future” makes me think you’re trying to hide something.
You want more of my money? Ask me straight up, prove that what you already take is spent wisely, convince me why you can’t make do with what you already have, and tell me why your cause is more important than roads, public safety, energy, water, parks, etc…
How shocking, another pitch for money from Mr. DiSalvo.
“Schools are an investment in our collective future.” How scary is that statement.
First of all, I can’t think of a single worse investment than to give more money to public education. Second, our future is not collective. The collective approach has destroyed communities throughout history. Why would we think that it won’t destroy ours? Or do we not teach that in government-run schools anymore? Maybe it has been replaced with arts appreciation, cultural diversity or sex-ed.
Even scarier are the statements coming out of people like Mr. DiSalvo. With all the obvious fat in our government, we hear talk of laying off teachers, laying off firemen, letting prisoners out of prison, etc.
I hope someday people see through this and will no longer be fooled by the emotional pulls of politicians. Their goals are not the same as ours. Once you get past their lofty rhetoric, the only thing left to see is that their approach to life is to bind yours.
Mr. DiSalvo needs a budget cut.
All these fat cats with fancy titles and big pay checks.. what has their “expertise” brought us?
Right where we are at right now.
I know a slew of teachers, principals, superintendents, etc all across the state of CA. Some of these folks are great hardworking individuals, others simply need to be fired, or arrested. But all of them will tell you, whether openly, or behind closed doors where the waste is, and there is plenty.
Just a reminder, Mr. Professional Educator, taxpayers have civil rights too, you know, like the civil right:
to not have to pay to educate the children of every foreigner bold enough to ignore our laws and national sovereignty and sneak into this country (you left this expense of your list of evils)
to remind you that it was, and is, the “come one, come all” political response of public educators to illegal immigration that has, more than anything else in the last decade, crippled this state’s ability to keep up with its per-pupil funding goals (are we to believe that our educators are so ignorant of basic math that they could not predict the fiscal impact of an unrestrained influx of new students?)
to point out that our professional educators, the supposed standard bearers of our society’s quest for knowledge, have chosen belief over fact in pursuit of their costly, scientifically debunked, egalitarian denial of innate difference (there is not enough money in the universe to change the fact that more than half of the students in this state are below average in intelligence)
to reject the idea that the cure for a failed system is to put more money into the hands of those who delivered its failure (while tricking even our dumbest students into thinking they’re scholars)
to expect that young people attending college have the required intelligence and a demonstrated gift for learning (have you seen the monosyllabic state college students interviewed on television?—we’re wasting billions of dollars on dullards who should be out getting started in the food service industry)
Yes, this situation has been brought about by Proposition 13. Thanks for bringing it up.
I think the statistic that our spending will be ranked 50th out of 50 states reflects a very legitimate concern about funding levels. While overspending and inefficiency are always certainly topical, Joseph is not out of sorts at all bringing up our funding levels.
The one place I do agree with all these foam-at-the-mouth conservative tax-cutters, though, is that we need a state constitutional convention and readdress state responsibilities versus cost. Propositions, electing ‘nontraditionals’ into politics, and tea parties aren’t doing a damned bit of good.