Mitchell Colbert lifted a copy of his student transcripts above his head. With his free hand, he raised a lighter. “During the Vietnam War, soldiers would burn their draft cards to protest the war,” the senior San Jose State University political science major shouted into the microphone. “Well, I have for you today a copy of my transcript.”
As 700-plus students and supporters wielding signs and pumping fists cheered him on in front of the César Chávez memorial arch at San Jose State University, Colbert flicked a lighter with his thumb. The papers erupted into flames and the crowd went wild.
Colbert shouted dramatically from the dais, “let them burn in your hearts,” his face red, a black beret secure on his head. He then began to chant: “The students, united, will never be divided!” And the crowd joined in.
That was the scene at San Jose State University this afternoon as hundreds of students, faculty and union members marched through downtown San Jose as part of a statewide Day of Action for Public Education.
Thousands of people marched on campuses throughout California today, protesting the deep cuts to education the country has seen over the past year. About 400 people gathered in front of San Jose City Hall at 11:30am, most carrying handmade signs with slogans such as “Bail Out Schools, Not Banks,” “Books Not Bombs,” “This is Bullshit,” and “W.T.F.?!?”
Lead by Jonathan Karpf, an SJSU anthropology professor and representative for the California Faculty Association, the crowd marched down Santa Clara Street, gathering more people as they congregated outside State Sen. Abel Maldonado’s office near the federal courthouse.
“I’ve had to tell a lot of students that I don’t have space in my classroom for them,” said Preston Rudy, a SJSU sociology professor who was marching in the protest. “I’ve actually had students get upset and cry because they want to graduate this next semester, but they can’t get the classes they need.
“The university just works slower, because staff and faculty have had to take furlough days off. I’ve even had students find out after their add and drop date that they don’t have enough classes to graduate.”
The California State University system has lost over $1 billion in funding, causing them to lay off over 2,000 faculty members and slash course offerings. Meanwhile, student fees have been jacked up dramatically.
The voices of the 700-plus protesters echoed off the concrete walls and stairways of the federal building as they chanted “Abel Maldonado, We Need Your Support!”
This afternoon’s rally then made its way down Paseo de San Antonio, screaming, drumming on buckets and spinning noise makers as motorcycle-riding police officers held the honking oncoming traffic.
“This is going to put this into people’s consciousness,” said Richard Hansen, faculty association representative for Foothill and De Anza colleges, and one of the protest’s leaders. “The logjam in Sacramento is really created by the two thirds vote required for any new taxes or to pass the budget. There needs to be some additional revenue to begin to creatively work through some of these difficulties, but instead it’s just cut, cut, cut from the state. They’re not going to do anything else. It’s the one-third tyranny of the minority.”
Large scale-student demonstrations were also currently being held in Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles and San Diego.
Unlike the Federal budget, California is required to have a balanced budget. If less revenue comes in, then less can be spent. I wanted to educated myself a little, so I looked at budget numbers and what I’m seeing is that the budget has contracted from $110 billion in 2008 to $88 billion in this coming year.
In the proposed 2010-2011 budget the mirrors the current years, revnue is listed as coming from:
1) Personal Income Tax $46.8 Billion
2) Sales Tax $25.8 Billion
3) Corporate Tax $10.5 Billion
4) All others (DMV,etc)$ 6.3 Billion
Prop 98 was passed that required 40 percent of the budget goes to education, which was defined as K-14 (notice it includes community colleges and not CSU and UC).
I did not see property taxes anywhere in the state budget documents. If I understand it, the revenue is collected locally, sent to sacramento then redistributed to local agencies. I want to learn more about that.
Expenditures in the State Budget are as follows (millions of $):
1) K-12 Education $35,042
2) Health and Human Services $24,953
3) Higher Education $10,547
4) Corrections and Rehabilitation $8,210
5) Business, Transportation & Housing $2,585
6) Legislative, Judicial, Executive $1,884
7) Natural Resources $1,842
8) State and Consumer Services $569
9) General Government:
Non-Agency Departments $535
Tax Relief/Local Government $463
10) Environmental Protection $73
11) Labor and Workforce Development $64
Total $84,583
Informed debate is important in handling the public business, but as every political organizer will tell you it only gets in the way of a good rally. Emotional appeal issues get people out, not budget pie charts. “Books not bombs” implies that California’s education system is being underfunded because of the Defense Budget, which is Federal and not State. What I got from looking at budget numbers is that our economy is shrinking and so is our state government. Public Universities are being semi-privatized with fee increases and public business in other areas is being differed (roads and infrastructure, etc.)
We’re kind of in a spiral of decline where the austerity measures don’t seem to help with the fiscal problem as we continue to lose revenue. If you think this is just a temporary problem, and things will get better soon, all is well and we just need to tough it out a few years. But if the state is becoming non-competitive due to failing infrastructure and such, we’ll see an increasing decline until we become something other than the Golden State.
As one of the organizers, we did our best to keep people on a united message. We are not fascists, we cannot control every action, of every individual, and so some people will make “Books not Bombs” signs. The majority of us realize that is a ludicrous waste of signage.
Though I didn’t have my sign with me today, I was preoccupied by drumming, my sign proudly says “Underfunded Schools, Undereducated Students.” Direct, simple, to the point.
At least we weren’t demanding for an end to the war, like some schools. We at SJSU have realistic goals and are using logical methods to achieve them. We have already seen success, before yesterday’s march. After marching, we will hopefully see further successes.
“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. quote
Mitchell,
THANK YOU for caring about my tomorrows! Keep up the good fight and don’t let the naysayers bring you down! Many of us out here support lawful demonstrations!
Education is such a vital component of our country’s success in not only the business world, but in society as a whole. I worry about these cuts in education too. Our country’s youth are our future leaders. If they aren’t educated then they won’t have decent paying jobs to support themselves and their families. We won’t be able to compete with other countries in the market place either.
It is a moral imperative to fight for education, equality, and for our community as a whole. Also, many people are unemployed and need to re-educate themselves in a different trait. They have paid taxes for years and deserve the education they need.
I’d feel bad about this, but my tax dollars that fund public universities pay for lots of nonsense like “-studies” courses that are full of nothing but left-wing propaganda and grievance mongering. Let’s cut the fat in academia, then worry about tuition rates.
Gee, “…left-wing propaganda and grievance mongering…” Can you give me a list of these courses and where they teach them since I’ve never seen them in any school I’ve been to.
> Can you give me a list of these courses and where they teach them since I’ve never seen them in any school I’ve been to.
Glad to help:
Sociology
Ethnic Studies
Gender Studies
Womens Studies
Black Studies
Hispanic Studies
Gay Studies
Lesbian Studies
Diversity Studies
Social Work
Political Science
History
Holocaust Studies
Environmental Studies
Climate Studies
Ecology
Any grievance group studies
Any course with “Racism”, “Victim”, “Oppression” or “Fairness” in the title or course description.
Any course with “Democracy” in the title or description that has nothing to do with ancient Greece. E.g. “economic democracy” is code word for Marxist redistribution of wealth.
And for some inexplicable reason, mathematics seems to have more than its share of barking moonbat professors.
My university had a notorious left wing freakazoid professor who claimed he had formulated a “differential equation of the world” but was afraid to solve it because the answer would be to horrifying.
C’yeah, its a shame we’re giving a damn about human beings. What an idea, right? Compassion, morality, and understand. What a load of bull honky, lets all get what’s mine.
Darn those commies!
History and ecology are “left-wing propaganda and grievance-mongering?” What better reason to be a liberal?
Seriously, what did you study/ do you believe that made you want to eliminate the humanities so badly?
> Darn those commies!
You’re too kind.
Try reading a book sometime.
Maybe Robert Conquest’s “The Great Terror” or “The Black Book of Communism” by Kramer and others.
Then, if you have any brains, you’ll be saying “Those god damn f***ing violent malignant nihilistic genocidal sociopath commies”. Or, maybe even worse.
You don’t always need 2/3. My understanding is that it still only takes 50% of voters to pass a general tax.
So, if half of all voters think general fund taxes are too low, they can fix it. I’m sure the Legislature would be happy to put it on the ballot for them for free.
You do need a 2/3 vote to raise taxes without voter approval. But, if voters are opposed, then we shouldn’t raise the taxes anyway.
California has not stopped educating it’s youth, just delayed graduating for some which probably will not hurt them since there are few jobs and many do not have degrees or skills that companies will hire
Many students and their parents who will pay for high cost college education should file a consumer complaint for fraud and gross misrepresentation since many degrees and 1-2 years of general ” full employment for liberal arts college professors ” courses are almost worthless in job market
We can expect angry comments from liberal arts professors and naive students that genereal ed courses will educate well rounded individual – bs, more bs and more bs.
Did anyone tell students those courses will not help them get a job in difficult job market
Most employers will look at you and think ” if you are so smart why did you waste years time and money for no jobs degree ” and worthless courses
Don’t want to face reality – You will soon see how your $100,000 education will help you get a Starbucks, McDonalds or other “low wage no college degree needed jobs” while you try to pay student loans for 10-15 years
Some programs in both the UC and CSU are run as parallel but private, with full tuition charged for professional degrees billed through extended education departments. The programs like medicine, law, MBA and even Library Science offer a way for those willing to pay the get a high-value degree quickly and then to cash in with a well paying job.
I actually predict we’ll see more of this as public goods are privatized and only the very poor and the wealthy will have full access. Everyone else (think people working their way through school without financial aid) will be left behind in the failing general systems.
I offer that the Master Plan for Higher Education was a key ingredient in the economic growth and prosperity in California from 1950-1990. We had a bright, educated workforce that increasingly reflected this state based on a meritocracy. I wouldn’t want to live in a society that only valued engineering, business or medical graduates. Everything from art to journalism goes into the mix and people get a taste of all that on the way to a Bachelors degree. The reality is that once entering the workforce, the degree itself will become less important as you apply yourself. We need to continue to teach people to think critically and reason based upon a good body of knowledge, and not simply shout in outrage and ignorance.
Someone who sticks with it and gets a degree, regardless of the major, stands out from someone who dropped out or never went at all. And a real college degree from a real institution is better than an online degree as we all know for-profit schools get paid to keep you happy and paying tuition and not so much about upholding rigid standards.
Why get a college degree when high-tech companies want to outsource and off-shore all jobs which require a degree?
Remember, our purpose in life is to insure high-tech executives get large bonuses, and their stock options are valauble.
No college degree needed. Great pay, work a couple days a week and better benefits then nearly all other careers.
I think you forgot one important requirement, you have to put your life on the line.
Jonathan Karpf has always been the rare soul who believes in action for the future. As for Mitchell, he is a true Spartan warrior fighting for justice!
Great job!
As for cowards and company men like Larry Care and Verril “tea lady” Phillips, in every struggle for civil rights, there are the greasy bug like figures who either head for hidden cracks or serve as bait on the fishooks of the fishermen.
California is the only oil-producing state that does not have an oil extraction tax. Texas, Alaska and other energy producing states fund higher education from oil extraction taxes. California produces more energy than Alaska.
As long as Republicans in the legislature can block any attempt to increase state revenue because of the 2/3 requirement, California education will continue on the road to third world quality.
Sign up to put the proposition for majority rule on the ballot, and vote for the proposition. Then we can get an oil extraction tax and rescue higher education.
California has enjoyed great economic benefits from having a skilled workforce in years past, thanks to the Master Plan that Clark Kerr developed 50 years ago. Now the War on Education threatens to destroy the education system and along with it the economy and the future of the state.
Today’s students are pretty sharp and they understand what is going on. San Jose State students are not easily roused to demonstrate, so when they can turn up to an event like this, you know things are getting bad.
The article states that 700 students took part in the march, but it doesn’t state that an equal or greater number was waiting on the 7th St. plaza for them to show up.
> California is the only oil-producing state that does not have an oil extraction tax. Texas, Alaska and other energy producing states fund higher education from oil extraction taxes. California produces more energy than Alaska.
> As long as Republicans in the legislature can block any attempt to increase state revenue because of the 2/3 requirement, California education will continue on the road to third world quality.
WHAT!!
This is preposterous.
It is NOT the Republicans that are opposing and blocking increased production of oil in California. It is the nihilist, brain-dead, anti-industial trust fund children at the Sierra Club and their Democrat sucklings.
California could become an economic dynamo if it did two obvious things:
1. Built aqueducts and irrigation systems to supply the central valley, increase agricultural production tenfold, and turn California into the food basket of the world.
2. Produced oil and gas from its vast oil and gas reserves and made California the Saudi Arabia of North America.
The ONLY reason these are not being done is POLITICS.
I have no sympathy for whiny college students who want subsidized education and DEMAND that we “save the environment” and then support politicians who starve the state and the education system of revenues.
BTW –
The CSU Chancellor and various campus administration or putting the greatest burden for the budget crisis on the backs of the students. In past years, faculty were rewarded for over-enrolling sections and filling empty seats with extra students, even though it increased their workload some.
This year, strict enrollment caps are enforced and empty seats cannot be filled or the faculty member will be punished. Many are willing to accomodate a few extra students and take on the extra work without pay, but the administration is trying to make a point about funding and quality and so the student is the one who suffers.
Pay more, get less, the CSU way!
You said:
“It is NOT the Republicans that are opposing and blocking increased production of oil in California. It is the nihilist, brain-dead, anti-industial trust fund children at the Sierra Club and their Democrat sucklings.
California could become an economic dynamo if it did two obvious things:
1. Built aqueducts and irrigation systems to supply the central valley, increase agricultural production tenfold, and turn California into the food basket of the world.
2. Produced oil and gas from its vast oil and gas reserves and made California the Saudi Arabia of North America.
The ONLY reason these are not being done is POLITICS.
I have no sympathy for whiny college students who want subsidized education and DEMAND that we “save the environment” and then support politicians who starve the state and the education system of revenues.”
Facts are:
Our state Republicans have signed a pledge refusing to do half of their job, that is, raise revenue. If they are refusing to do their job for political reasons, they need to be voted out of office like the problem children they are.
In regards to your point 1 and 2…We already HAVE aqueducts and irrigation systems making the central valley, an area that used to be DESERT, into the breadbasket of America. Your second claim is laughable, clearly you never went to college and never learned how to do research. Any Google search can prove your statement false.
The one thing you said that is correct is that politics is the reason this isn’t being done. It’s the fault of partisan politics, of Republicans that would rather see California burn than raise much needed revenue, and its the fault of individuals that are too stubborn and pig headed to educate themselves.
If you want to talk about starving California of revenue, and jobs, let’s just think for a moment what will happen when our state goes bankrupt. When we can no longer afford paved roads, an educated populace, police and fire services, then jobs will leave this state. Employers came here for an educated workforce and well maintained infrastructure. We are no longer #1 in education, we are now #47, and our roads are some of the worst in the country. This is what makes businesses leave.
Water policy!
In transportation planning, the rule was predict and provide. Figure out how many drivers were expected and build enough lanes. I say that to highlight what we didn’t do for urban planning, provide drinking water.
Cities grew unchecked with imaginary triggers for more housing like roads or jobs, but basically it was in no way related to the increased infrastructure demand (water and power). Rapid urbanization required more drinking water to be imported. Existing supply is a legacy system from the 1960’s, so its a zero sum game, more water for the cities, less for agriculture.
No investment in increasing the system supply, nor did cities do anything to decrease their burden (local supply, recycling, etc.)
A real stimulus would help. Let’s expand the water system statewide, adding reservoirs, dams and stormwater harvesting…then introduce recycling so that we’ll have abundance, not shortages. Build for the future, not he past.
Do the same thing with education, build new colleges and create regional partnerships where california colleges work on California’s problems from water to education and students can work off college debt in classrooms and public service. We could actually fund and do this ourselves with bonds and a little luck, and grow our way out of the recession, leading the nation in rational government.
Think it’ll happen?
No, it unfortunately won’t happen, because the Sierra Club et al, has a death grip on the state, preventing building dams for the water we need, clean nuclear power for our energy needs, and to thin out our forests to prevent massive and devastating forest fires.
> If you want to talk about starving California of revenue, and jobs, let’s just think for a moment what will happen when our state goes bankrupt.
OK. Thinking cap on.
Think. Think. Think.
OK. Got it.
If California goes bankrupt, then the lavish, monopolistic public employee union contracts are voided, and the California taxpayer saves BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars.
YAAYYYYYYY!
to who ever said we should cut,
Sociology
Ethnic Studies
Gender Studies
Womens Studies
Black Studies
Hispanic Studies
Gay Studies
Lesbian Studies
Diversity Studies
Social Work
Political Science
History
Holocaust Studies
Environmental Studies
Climate Studies
Ecology
fight me.
I think that person was being sarcastic.
If anyone is interested in doing something at SJSU, try http://www.facebook.com/SenseOffender?v=feed&story_fbid=391592620648#!/group.php?gid=24923449310&ref=ts for size. Students for Quality Education, the club that help organize the event.
Interesting post on this topic at Pajamas Media:
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/on-receiving-another-request-to-protest/
it’s written by Victor Davis Hanson and provides some insight into the recent protests.
quote:
“From my 21 years in the CSU system, I can attest that most of the “centers for…” and “assistants to” and “offices of” could easily be terminated. Both UC and CSU have vastly increased the percentage of non-academic, non-teaching expenditures in their budgets — the expanding number of non-instructional employees subsidized by both increased taxes and the exploitive use of part-time and graduate student instructors, who teach at well less than half the pay of normal faculty and now at some campuses account for nearly 40% of the total offered units. (Remember that the next time a tenured professor rails about pay inequity at Wal-Mart).”
“On the tax side, California has the highest income tax rates in the country. Its gasoline and sales taxes are also the steepest. Prop 13 limitations keep the rates of property taxes competitive with other states, but the assessments on property are so high in California that often homeowners pay almost the same as many with lower real rates elsewhere. Some 3,500 Californians, mostly on the higher end of the income spectrum, are believed to be leaving per week, mostly fleeing to low or no-income-tax states. I assume their thinking is something like, ‘I can save $20,000 a year in taxes and my children won’t be going to public schools that score 46-48th in national rankings of the states in math and science.’”
Here’s a good Wall Street Journal editorial regarding the tuition increases at UC:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704187204575101461287544470.html
Although the article focuses on UC, its problems are similar to CSU. In these lean times, we can’t go on with business as usual.
For those not inclined to read WSJ material, I’ll extract the germaine part for you:
“In the last decade, [California state] government worker pension costs (not including health care) have risen to $3 billion from $150 million, a 2,000% jump, while state revenues have increased by 24%. Because the stock market didn’t grow the way the legislature predicted in 1999, the only way to cover the skyrocketing costs of these defined-benefit pension plans has been to cut other programs (and increase taxes).”
The article contends that money is being diverted from education to cover this increase in pensions.
NJ Governor Christie captures the issue pretty well, noting that
“One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 toward his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits—a total of $3.8 million on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?”
I’ll end with this thought: pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered.
Pat,
I read the same thing in the WSJ. It is an op-ed piece which provides no references to where the author got their numbers. I seriously doubt that just 10 years ago pension costs were only $150 million. Could you please provide a link to our state government so we can confirm this figure.
A link to The Governator’s 2005 speech identifying this as a problem can be found at:
http://www.gov.ca.gov/speech/2116/.
Notable is his opening:
“In the year 2000, our pension obligation was $160 million dollars. Now, it is $2.6 billion. This is a 1600 percent increase over the past five years.
Clearly, our costs are out of control, and that diverts the people’s money away from vital programs like transportation, education, healthcare and fighting crime.”
5 years later, it hasn’t gotten any better.
> I have no doubt pension reform is needed . . .
If you’re going to accept the premise, then what’s the point of quibbling over whether the increase is 1600%, 1400%, 160% or 16% ?
“Polarizing” is not a bad thing. I just evidences that enough people are finally getting mad enough to attempt to do something, or in the cant of the Obama regime, “to effect change”.
Accurate facts are needed so that a good solution can be found rather than unfounded hyperbole being slung by both sides. Polaring is not a bad thing if you want no solution. Right now, you have people from both sides that are angry, and both feel they are entitiled to their anger. They are presented with hyperbole, such as what Pat Waite has done, rather than facts, and each side is worked up into a frenzy. Nothing will be accomplished. I wonder what Pat Waite and you feel about millions of tax payer dollars being used from the bank bailout to pay bonuses to banking and insurance representatives?
While the pension costs have risen drastically, I would doubt they went up 1600% in 5 years. Just because the Governor said it in his speech does not make it so. I have heard that politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, sometimes say things that aren’t true, though I have no way to prove this. I have no doubt pension reform is needed, but hyperbole on both sides does nothing but polarize and anger both sides, accomplishing nothing. At least have a link to a good source where your figures can be verified if you are putting them out there as fact.
I think it is astounding you don’t think facts are important.
“And there is no way to understand California’s fiscal catastrophe without first acknowledging the key role that union benefits have played. In 1999, the state legislature passed a financially reckless plan allowing the state’s public-safety workers to retire with a pension equal to 90% of their salaries if they had served at least 30 years. This move led to a spate of “pension spiking,” wherein public employees received dramatic pay increases in their last few years of service in order to feather their nests in retirement. With unused sick leave and vacation time also included in the benefit calculus, the state’s obligations have multiplied at a dizzying rate. As a result, more than 5,000 former state employees now enjoy taxpayer-supported retirement packages of more than $100,000 per year.”
http://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/who-killed-california
> Accurate facts are needed so that a good solution can be found rather than unfounded hyperbole being slung by both sides. Polaring is not a bad thing if you want no solution.
Not necessarily true.
The search for “accurate facts” can just be a delaying tactic to avoid reaching a solution that one side doesn’t want.
Bailing out banks was a major mistake. (So were the AIG rescue, the auto company takeovers and the “stimulus” package). The bailout was a knee jerk reaction by politicians who feel compelled to do something…anything…to look like they have some control over things.
Look at the Sarbanes-Oxley bill as exhibit 1. Did it prevent corporate malfeasance? I think the evidence of the last couple of years proves otherwise.
I wouldn’t want you on a jury deciding my fate. Facts and the truth are the most important thing.
> pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered.
Great. I’m all for recycling the hogs in the public trough into ham sandwiches or bratwursts.
But can we also make the pigs into footballs?
Government reporting does not facilitate line item cost analysis. They are more interested in reporting by function/purpose. So I will point you toward figure 2 in the attached (independent) legislative analyst’s office analysis, which shows the growth in pension costs.
http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis_2008/general_govt/gen_anl08011.aspx
But why don’t you come up with sources that refute the claim? I’m more than happy to accept them.