California School News 

The state budget, urban governance, statewide school construction bonds and other hot-button issues face the state’s education community in this unprecedented fifth straight election year, school board members, administrators and other education leaders learned at CSBA’s Forecast 2006 conferences in Sacramento and San Diego last month.

Assistant Executive Director, Governmental Relations Rick Pratt outlined competing proposals for statewide K-12 facilities bonds that are currently before the Legislature. Assembly Bill 58, by Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, would provide $6.5 billion for K-12. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is promoting a package worth $7.4 billion. While the details remain to be discussed by the Legislature and the administration, it is anticipated that a K-12 bond will appear on the ballot in November.

The state budget will again be a primary focus of the coming year, along with high school reform, the California High School Exit Exam and curriculum issues.

CTA vs. Schwarzenegger

Saying the move is a “big step for us legally,” Executive Director Scott P. Plotkin announced that CSBA and the Association of California School Administrators are poised to intervene in the 2005 lawsuit filed against the governor over his failure to comply with the law limiting the 2004-05 suspension of the Proposition 98 funding guarantee to $2 billion (see related story below). The California Teachers Association and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell sued last summer, arguing that schools were owed an estimated $3.1 billion more for 2004-05 and 2005-06.

Adequacy

A CSBA-led outreach effort to weave a wide base of support for adequate education funding is proceeding on a parallel track to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Advisory Committee on Education Excellence and the committee’s own research into “adequacy and efficiency,” Plotkin said. “These are going to be big issues for the coming year, and probably into 2007,” when the committee’s research findings will be published.

Teacher tenure

CSBA will renew its longstanding drive for reform of teacher tenure laws. After the “fiasco” of Proposition 74, the governor’s flawed tenure reform measure on last year’s special election ballot, Plotkin said that teachers’ representatives are willing to discuss the issue with CSBA in hopes that a more reasonable and responsible measure will emerge from the legislative process. CSBA was founded nearly 75 years ago in part to fight unsatisfactory teacher tenure law, Plotkin noted.

Preschool

CSBA’s Delegate Assembly will consider the “Preschool for All” initiative at its May meeting in Sacramento, Plotkin said. The June ballot measure would raise approximately $2 billion annually to make optional, half-day preschool programs available for all California 4-year-olds by 2010.

Other issues coming up this year — aside from contests for governor and other constitutional offices, as well as more than three dozen legislative races where incumbents are termed out — include:

• Urban governance, highlighted by proposals for mayoral control or dissolution of the Los Angeles Unified School District that could lead to threats against other school districts.
• GASB 45, the Government Accounting Standards Board rule that will tighten reporting requirements for post-retirement health and welfare benefits. “This is going to be huge. There are school districts in serious trouble because of this,” Plotkin said.

Related link: See video excerpts from the Executive Director’s Forecast address