Vantage Point: California school funding: ‘Worse than a retreat, it’s a massacre’ 

Note: A version of this commentary originally appeared in the California Progress Report (www.californiaprogressreport.com); reprinted with permission.

As public schools around the country prepare for a “Race to the Top,” California’s schools are sinking to the bottom in funding. Nationally, $5 billion in the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund has been set aside for Race to the Top competitive grants. In a speech last month in San Francisco, U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan noted the decline of public schools in California from “the best education system in the country,” and asked, “Is California going to lead the race to the top or are you going to lead the retreat?”

Governor Schwarzenegger’s May Revision of the budget offers a clear answer to that question: all-out retreat. It proposes further funding cuts this year followed by more cuts next year. These are on top of cuts that were imposed in February, which themselves were added to the cuts in the original budget last fall. By the time we entered the fiscal year that began July 1, school budgets had been cut four times since September.

That’s worse than a retreat; it’s a massacre. We know that, based on a cut of “only” $3 billion last September, schools have already reduced or eliminated important programs and services. Class sizes are growing at all grade levels, after-school tutoring and summer school programs are being eliminated, school counselors and librarians have been laid off, and the curriculum is shrinking with the loss of high school electives, arts and music education, sports and advanced placement courses.

California already has far more students per teacher, librarian, counselor and nurse than the national average. We even have fewer school site and district level administrators and—contrary to popular opinion—are among the most under-administered schools in the country. And, as any good businessperson will tell you, strong administration is absolutely essential for quality control.

Despite these conditions, California’s schools are performing remarkably well. Since 1999, the percentage of schools that meet or exceed state targets on the Academic Performance Index has tripled.

These are impressive gains, but they will not be sustainable with the proposed cuts. We are gutting the very programs that made these gains possible and that are needed to continue the momentum so that all students can be successful. The problem is not that our schools are failing; it’s that we are failing our schools.

There is an alternative to the cuts—raise the revenues that are needed to properly invest in our schools, our youth and our future. It is time for California’s elected leaders to make a decision: Do they want to live in a state that is systematically dismantling its public education system, closing its parks, releasing its prisoners, neglecting its infrastructure, selling off its assets and eliminating health care and other services for more than a million children?

A cuts-only solution to the budget gap will throw tens of thousands of teachers and other school employees out of work. The economic impact of this job loss is no less than the impact of job loss in the private sector, but it is compounded by the added impact of the loss of educational opportunities for our children.

We have heard many times from our leaders in Sacramento that this is a time for tough choices. One of the easiest of those tough choices should be to raise the revenue needed to keep California golden. Continuing to decimate education funding is a travesty that will only further tarnish the futures of our children and our society.