Cruel budget cuts to Texas Schools.

Texas is cutting its school budgets _ like California.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2011-03-11/save-our-schools/

The Bee's faulty campaign on teacher layoffs

The Bee's editorial position is strange. Jan.27. here.here They  assert that the lay off priority process for teachers is wrong. They  argue that students have a constitutional right to quality education. At the same time they  accept without push back the massive lay off of teachers. These lay offs increase class size and degrade the rights of the students. The Bee should address the bigger picture, how can we stop these massive layoffs? Its the state budget. Governor Brown’s central argument that the money is not there is inaccurate.  The money is there if the state is willing to collect the revenue.  Here is a list of sources for at $26 billion dollars. http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/01/california-budget-crisis-sources-of.html
It is a major mistake to make deep, immediate budget cuts in the middle of recession. This will make the recession worse. Instead,  we need to build the promise of California.
  That promise is a good education for all, a good  job for all,  the opportunity to have  a rewarding career, and the chance for a life that is more than simply the workplace.  The austerity paradigm underlying the tax and budget cut mania, which the Bee  accepts,   does not promote good jobs nor  rewarding   careers for teachers, police, firefighters, nurses.    It will make the recession worse.

School district not going broke- Natomas

The headline in the Sacramento Bee today  says, “School district is going broke,” Dec.2,2010. P. B1.  The article by Diana Lambert.

The article, and the headlines, miss the major points, create a distorted frame for the story, and assign blame for the wrong problem.

The issue is that the Natomas schools have cut their budgets by $31.2 million, and now, due to the failure of the legislature to adequately fund the schools, they must cut even more. Natomas is not a troubled school district. Like all districts it must respond to the draconian cuts imposed from the state.

The new superintendent and the school board wants the teachers to take a bigger pay cut.  That is, they insist that teachers take pay cuts to respond to the failure of the legislature to adequately fund the schools.  The Bee regularly argues that teachers should take these cuts.

These cuts hurt children. Already the district has raised its class size from 20 to 25 in k-3. This means that some children will not learn to read and some will not learn math. It is difficult to make these cuts since they damage the quality of education.

Appointing a financial monitor is a means of enforcing a failed state policy of budget cuts. An accounting view of the problem is that the district must make the cuts. An educational view of the problem is that the School Board has a responsibility to provide a quality education for all the children.

The children did not cause the economic crisis. Major banks and corporations like AIG and Citi corp looted the economy creating an international meltdown. Now, they have been rewarded with bail out money and Wall Street has recovered.  Meanwhile, the anti tax crowd roars, - no new taxes and the Republican Party minority used the anti democratic 2/3 vote rule last year to  prevent raising taxes.

The result. Each child have about $1,400 less spent on their education this year. This in a state that already ranks 49 out of the 50 states in reading. Children will have larger classes, they will learn less, and they will have less support. The County office of education nor the independent consultant will provide help for this real problem.

The  cuts are imposed by the economic crisis- not the school board and that the cuts hurt children. These kinds of severe budget cuts are occurring in schools throughout the state.  The difference is do the school board pass on the cuts and do the teachers accept the cuts.  What would be an alternative?  Well, if the Congress passed a financial transaction tax of say .25 %, their would be money for the schools and other needed projects.  Notice. You pay 8% tax on all purchases, but when finance capital buys and sells stocks, they do not pay a tax on these sales. 

Notice also, that the stimulus funds sent to the schools this year to create jobs are being held by several districts.  And, given the Republican win of the control of the House of Representatives, it is unlikely that further stimulus funds will be passed.
  All the well informed economists predict that this economic crisis will last at least two more years and the fiscal crisis in the states - including California- will last years beyond that.  That is, there is no improvement coming in California school budgets.  The quality of education in the schools will continue to deteriorate.

Budget Crisis to damage schools- again

The state  has a budget crisis again this year- the third year in a row.  As a result, the schools will again have a budget crisis.

California faces chronic challenges – an outdated tax system and a two-thirds vote requirement for passing  any tax increase.  Recent tax cuts  result in  that the state  not  bringing  in enough revenue to support its schools, universities and other public services.

The  current economic crisis that began in 2007 has made matters worse. This crisis was created by finance capital and banking, mostly on Wall Street ie. Chase Banks, Bank of America, AIG, and others.   Finance capital produced a $ 2 trillion bailout of the financial industry, the doubling of U.S. unemployment rate and the loss of 2 million manufacturing jobs in 2008. The crisis took over 12 Trillion $ from the economy.   Fifteen million people are out of work.  You and I, and college students did not create this crisis.  Finance capital stole the future of many young people.

Falling home prices and lagging earnings have pushed revenues down while, at the same time, an increase in need for  public services – including food stamps,  Healthy Families and more. As prison costs took more and more of the state budget, the state has increased its tuition for students in the CSU by over 240 % in the last eight years and a parallel amount in the U.C.s - far beyond inflation.

Passage of Proposition 25 on the November ballot made it easier to pass a budget by removing the 2/3 requirement for passing the budget, but it did not effect the 2/3 requirement to raise taxes.

Proposition 22 prevents the state from borrowing transportation funds for the general fund, as was done to balance prior budgets.  The failure of  Proposition 24 leaves untouched a series of large corporate tax breaks passed in 2008 to gain a budget passage vote that year.  Proposition 26 reverses the earlier practice of  taking money from the fuel tax to assist the state budget.

Prior budgets were passed with the significant assistance of federal stimulus money under the ARRAct.  These funds provided money to hire teaches, nurses, police and firefighters and helped to fund the state Medical system.  The victory of conservative Republicans in much of the nation- but not in California- means that federal stimulus money is unlikely in the next couple of years.  This lack of stimulus will cost more jobs at the state and local levels- including at least 15,000 teachers.

The legislature and the governor are entering a mean season.

Area schools await U.S. Aid. Outrage or incompetence?

The morning Bee has a frustrating report by Diane Lambert on B1 which says that  some area school districts are considering using their portion of the schools stimulus funds next year ( not this one) for a variety of  dubious purposes.  This manipulation reduces teachers in the classrooms.

http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/ca/edjobsfund.asp

Lets review.  What got this law passed?   The economic collapse on Wall Street had decimated our schools. We activists convinced Congress that we need teachers in the classrooms.  And, putting teachers back to work would stimulate (grow) the economic recovery.

Now, according to this article several local districts, including Natomas Unified, don’t know how they will spend the money, when they will spend it,  and for what.  This manipulation and profit taking reduces teachers in the classroom –remember we needed them, and  removes the stimulus effect of the appropriation.

I am appalled at the bone headedness of these officials. One result will be there will be no future appropriations for this purpose- that is the local officials are creating a fraud on Congress.  The stimulus package was not a birthday gift to be spent however they chose.   It is not a deposit in their piggy bank. It was an investment with particular goals – more teachers and public stimulus.

Any school board member who votes for these diversions should be voted out of office.   As the President said in his news conference, “this country is really hurting and we don’t have time anymore to play games.” Here are the present allocations;

Elk Grove Unified $11.9 million

San Juan Unified $8.4 million

Sacramento Unified $8.4 million

Twin Rivers $5.5 million

Folsom Cordova Unified $3.5 million

Natomas Unified $2.4 million

Roseville Joint Union High School $2.1 million

Woodland Joint Unified $1.9 million

Roseville City Elementary $1.7 million

El Dorado Union High School $1.5 million

Dry Creek Joint Unified $1.3 million

Washington Unified $1.3 million

http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/ca/edjobsfund.asp

School finance lawsuit- students' views

Teachers jobs- education funding

The U.S. House of Representatives just delivered a major victory for America’s educators. Now, we have to keep up the pressure and get the Senate on board. Thanks to your calls, letters, and visits, the House approved $10 billion in new funds to prevent over 130,000 educators from being laid off -- averting severe cuts that would hurt students, teachers, education support professionals, and our public schools. Now the bill moves to the Senate, where we face a challenging path. It’ll take a massive show of support from members like you to make sure the Senate votes to approve these vital funds. Call 1-866-608-6355 to be automatically connected to your Senator’s office. Make sure your Senator knows that education jobs are important to you. With many states facing budget shortfalls, hundreds of thousands of teachers’ and education support professionals’ jobs are at risk. But this challenge is about much more than protecting jobs. Our students’ futures shouldn’t be put in danger by today’s short-sighted budget decisions. Education jobs funding would keep our public schools strong -- making sure that our students get the quality public education they deserve. That’s why I’m asking you to call your Senator today and speak up for education and kids. Dial 1-866-608-6355 and tell your Senator to support America’s students and educators. Let’s raise our voices and make sure the Senate knows how much is riding on this critical funding. Thanks for getting involved. Dennis Van Roekel President National Education Association P.S. Please visit http://educationvotes.nea.org for the latest news on this important legislation.

School budget cut proposals- Joel Klein

Joel I. Klein, the chancellor of the New York City school system, which is competing for Race to the Top money, said Congress should save the $800 million elsewhere, even if it meant cutting federal aid for schools with high-poverty students. “Here’s a chance with Race to the Top to really change the game,” he said. “Why would you take the money out of that?”

Mr. Obey, however, said the cut approved by the House would leave $3.2 billion for the favored programs. “To suggest we are being unduly harsh is a joke,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/us/politics/03cong.html?_r=1&hpw

Remember, Joel Klein was considered for Secretary of Education 

School budget cuts - Oregon

By Joanne Yatvin 

The job of destroying America's public schools, left unfinished by No Child Left Behind, has now been taken over by our economic recession.

In nearly every state, teacher layoffs, a shortened school year, class-size increases and elimination of vital parts of the school curriculum are in progress, So far, Congress has failed to respond. Apparently our public schools, unlike Wall Street banks, are not "too big to fail." Ironically, the business community, the leading advocate of school reform in recent years, remains silent. 

To make matters worse, the only assistance the Obama administration has offered to states is a Faustian bargain: Allow the unlimited proliferation of charter schools that drain the most dedicated students, their families and funds from public schools; evaluate teachers' competence by their students' scores on flawed, once-a-year state tests; and accept national standards designed by people who haven't been inside a classroom or near any kids but their own since they graduated. Then -- maybe -- we'll give you enough money to keep school buildings open. 


In the face of this national disaster, the public appears to be accepting the inevitable, perhaps thinking that it's all just temporary and soon, as the recession ends, all school losses will be restored. But will they?

Most of the teachers being laid off today are the young ones, who are also the ones most likely to change course and pursue other careers. Few will come back to teaching by the time the economy recovers. We can't count on public support for school rebuilding either because the people who vote and speak up most often -- the wealthy, the retired and parents with children in private or charter schools -- won't be affected by public school cuts. 

Moreover, the public memory is short. A couple of years from now, hardly anyone will remember that schools once taught history, science, music and physical education, just as they've already forgotten that schools used to have nurses, art teachers and librarians. 

Although I can't argue that states are not suffering a severe financial crisis or that big reductions in this major state budget item don't need to be made, Oregon is targeting the wrong areas. By looking for a few places where the most money can be saved with the least trouble, school leaders are about to sever vital arteries that nourish educational excellence and to miss opportunities to eliminate the real expendables in our schools. 

Instead of laying off teachers, eliminating physical education and jamming more students into already crowded classrooms, the state and school districts should be targeting non-classroom personnel, delaying purchases of all textbooks and commercial materials, reducing sports and other extracurricular activities, eliminating teacher professional development programs, denying approval of additional charter schools and, above all, putting a moratorium on state tests. 

Whether we like these things or not, we have to agree that they are nonessential and far more likely to be restored in the future than the people and programs that stand by all our kids every day. 

Joanne Yatvin is an adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Education at Portland State University.

comment.
Of course in California we have already done the things he lists as alternatives. The only realistic alternative now is to raise revenues.  Prior posts have dealt with this.

School propaganda from the Governor's office

California has a Secretary of Education as well as a Superintendent of Public Instruction.  The Superintendent organizes the state educational programs and implements state mandates.  The Secretary of Education is an advisor to the Governor. The current Secretary is Bonnie Reiss, about the 5^th. Secretary under Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Secretary Reiss has a letter to the editor in the Sacramento Bee of Tues. June 29, responding to an earlier column by Dan Walters about the state’s persistent high drop out rate.  The letter is a classic piece of propaganda.

You begin with the statement, “schools with effective teachers and effective principals do well and those with ineffective teachers and ineffective principals do not. “  She is correct.  But, in the service of propaganda, this statement tells only a part of the story.  It says something you agree with in order to introduce the propaganda message.  She then goes on to say, “It is time for California to join the national education reform movement  and change state law to move away from our current failed system that is based solely on teacher seniority.”  That is the propaganda piece.

Lets see. There are schools with high levels of drop outs, and schools with very low level of dropouts.  The high drop out schools tend to be in poverty areas and the low drop out schools tend to be in upper middle class areas.  Both groups of schools have precisely the same teacher seniority requirements.  That is, there is no evidence that teacher seniority leads to the high drop out crisis in California.

I have  taught in public schools and university teacher preparation programs for over 40 years and written books on this subject.  Lets look a little deeper.

California has had a chronic drop out problem since at least 1969 and the drop outs are concentrated in low income schools. The problem has not been improved.  In the last two years the Governor has cut $16 billion from school budgets, will that make matters better or worse?   As the Robles-Wong v California lawsuit asserts California spends $2131 less dollars per student than the national average.  (www.fixschoolfinance.org) Significant budget cuts increase class size. Large class sizes mean that many  2,3^rd, 4^th, graders are not learning to read well- even with good teachers.  These students will be your future drop outs.

Severe budget cuts at the high school levels produce immediate drop outs. Most counselors have been eliminated. California ranks 49^th. out of the 50 states in counselors per student.  There are few counselors to look after students who fall behind or get in difficulty.  California ranks 49^th. out of the 50 states in librarians.  Severe budget cuts eliminate supplemental support programs such as having probation officers working with the schools.  As a result you have more disruptive student in classes.  Even good teachers have difficulty when there are large numbers of disruptive students in classes.  More disruption leads to more students failing. There is more gang violence and more gang related crime as gang intervention workers are laid off. 

It is precisely the 30 year history of under funding our schools, accelerated under the Schwarzenegger administration that is the problem.  As described in prior posts, the state is not the blame for the economic crisis.  That was the work of the Wall Street bankers.  However, the state is responsible for the response to the economic crisis- and it is failing. 

County, city, state budget cuts- How is that working out for you?

County, city budget cuts loom

Sacramento County is cutting its sheriff patrols, closing mental health clinics, closing parks, and closing emergency health care clinics.  There has been an almost 30% decline in sales tax revenues in the past two years. Property tax funds are a   large  share of county budgets, and plummeting real estate values have meant even less income for counties to pay their bills .   The  on going  state budget-crisis state  cuts funding for counties yet  the state still requires them to provide costly programs. The reality is that almost all of California's counties are facing significant budget shortfalls resulting in cuts in programs, services and staffing.

Sacramento City is closing fire stations on a part time basis, closing senior centers, and reducing police protection.  Both the county and the city are depending upon major concessions from labor unions to respond to declining revenues.

In the last two years California’s  k-12 schools have received over a  $16 billion  cut back in  state funding.   California presently ranks  44th  of the states in per pupil spending and last among the states in class size.   This year in the budget  the Governor proposes to reduce  k-12 spending by another  $2.4 Billion.

National Assessment of Education Progress [NAEP]:

• California is tied for 47th among states in fourth-grade reading. (NAEP, 2008-09)

• California is tied for 46th in eighth-grade math. (NAEP, 2008-09)

Finance; • California spends $2,131 less per pupil than the national average, ranking the State  44th in the country. (National Education Association [NEA], 2008-09)

• California spends less per pupil than each of the largest 10 states in the nation –almost $6,000 less per pupil than New York. (NEA, 2008-09

Taxpayers are getting only what they are paying for- a Mississippi class education system. The reality is that almost all of California's counties are facing significant budget shortfalls resulting in cuts in programs, services and staffing.  And, some 42 of the states have severe budget crises including those with non union workers and low benefits such as Arizona, Texas, and Oklahoma.

In order to help the economy grow, national, state and local governments need to maintain and to create jobs.  This policy is called Keynesianism.   Interestingly candidate Meg Whitman proposes exactly the opposite – cut jobs and reduce taxes for the corporations.    We have had Republican/corporate governors for 22 out of the last 28 years.  They have been pursuing the tax cut mantra.  How well has that worked out for you?

California fails to adequately finance its schools

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL FINANCE LITIGATION

Robles-Wong v. California

Fact Sheet

Overview

• Robles-Wong v. California asks the State of California to fulfill its constitutional

obligation to support our public schools and students. This historic lawsuit was

brought forth by a broad coalition of students, parents, school districts and educational

organizations.

• Education is a fundamental right of every child in California. California’s Constitution

requires a school system that prepares students to become informed citizens and

productive members of society.

• This lawsuit declares that California’s unsound, unstable and insufficient school

finance system is neither aligned with required educational programs nor with student

needs. The amount of funding provided to education is not enough to deliver the

required programs to all students so that they meet the State’s educational goals, and

the funding system causes unequal learning opportunities.

• California has set clear requirements for what schools are expected to teach and what

students are expected to learn. The State has failed in its obligation to provide the

resources necessary for students to meet the required standards.

• The State’s failure to support the required educational program adversely affects all

students. Academic achievement measures show California’s broken school finance

system denies students the opportunity to become proficient in the State’s academic

standards.

• This lawsuit seeks to remedy the broken school finance system by (1) declaring that it

is unconstitutional and (2) requiring state lawmakers to uphold their constitutional

duty to design and implement a school finance system that provides all students equal

access to the required educational program.

Plaintiffs

Schwarzenneger and school budgets- 2

BURLINGAME – David A. Sanchez, president of the 325,000-member California Teachers Association, issued this statement about the governor’s revised state budget spending proposals released today:

“The governor’s revised budget cuts billions more from our public schools. While the governor this year has vowed to protect public education funding, he is actually proposing to cut another $3 billion from schools. And today, as the governor touted that his main goal is to stimulate California’s economy and to protect jobs, thousands of educators will find out they are being laid off. The governor’s promises are proving to be just contradictions that are misleading and unproductive.

“More than 26,000 California teachers received preliminary pink slips this spring and thousands got the final word today that they will not be coming back to their classrooms in the fall. Last year, 16,000 teachers lost their jobs. Our teachers and students are very clear about what’s happening because our school system is at the breaking point and the cuts are devastating our communities.

“California’s public schools and colleges were cut more than $17 billion over the last two years. Today, class sizes are larger, and neighborhood schools have closed their libraries and eliminated arts, music, sports and summer school programs. Our students deserve better.

“Governor, it’s time to keep your promises. Stop gambling with our students’ future and forge a state budget that solves the deficit crisis without more cuts that will only hurt, not help, our students and our state. You can start dealing with our state’s revenue rollercoaster by repealing the tax breaks you handed out to large corporations and oil companies last year.”

###

The 325,000-member CTA is affiliated with the 3.2 million-member National Education Association.

Defunding public education is stupid.

By Harold Meyerson

Thursday, May 6, 2010

One of the precious few points of consensus in our polarized land is that we need to do a better job educating our kids. But consensus, apparently, gets you only so far. In red states and blue, in urban, suburban and rural districts with unionized and non-unionized teachers, the story is the same: The worst recession since the 1930s is clobbering the nation's schools.

In Indiana and Arizona, the legislatures have eliminated free all-day kindergarten. In Kansas, some school districts have gone to four-day weeks. In New Jersey, 60 percent of school districts are reducing their course offerings. In Albuquerque, the number of school district employees is down 10 percent. In the D.C. suburbs, Maryland's Prince George's and Virginia's Prince William counties have increased their class sizes.

A recent American Association of School Administrators survey of 453 school districts in 45 states shows how bad things are. One-third of the districts are looking at eliminating summer school this year. Fourteen percent are considering going to four-day weeks (last year, just 2 percent did). Fully 62 percent anticipate increasing class size next year, up from 26 percent in the current school year. The teacher-to-pupil ratio, the AASA says, will rise from 15 to 1 to 17 to 1.

Nationwide, estimates of teacher layoffs range from 100,000 to 300,000, with some experts pegging the most likely number nearer the high end. Layoffs are likely to be hardest on the youngest teachers -- "probably the most tech-savvy teachers we have," says Rep. George Miller, the California Democrat who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee. Nor do many talented, young people elect to enter the profession, he adds, when the profession is shrinking.

One of the signal accomplishments of the Obama stimulus package enacted last year was to spare school districts from more draconian cuts. Of the $787 billion legislation, $100 billion was directed to schools; while districts still had to lay off teachers and reduce course offerings, hundreds of thousands of layoffs and other cuts were averted. In California, for instance, the state's inspector general of stimulus spending found that the federal program funded 50,138 education jobs in 2009 that would otherwise have been lost.

But the $100 billion that the feds sent to the schools is largely spent, and no omnibus second stimulus looms. One problem with the current wave of deficit hawkery is that while it purports to be concerned with the nation's long-term debt, its immediate consequence is to block spending that could speed the recovery and restore sounder financial footing. By defunding education, however, it endangers our short-term recovery and our long-term economic prospects. Not to mention the development of America's children.

"You can't just push the pause button on kids' education and say, 'Wait a while,' " says Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, who chairs the Senate's Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Yet there is little willingness in Congress to craft another broad stimulus package even though education provisions plainly enhance the nation's ability to create a globally competitive workforce.

There is also little support for finding offsetting cuts or tax hikes to pay for such a bill. Accordingly, Miller and Harkin have introduced legislation in their respective houses narrowly targeted to saving the schools. Each has authored a provision to allot $23 billion to education for the coming fiscal year, with the hope of including it in the next supplemental appropriation bill that contains emergency appropriations that don't have to be offset by cuts or tax hikes. (Miller's provision also includes an additional $2 billion to help local governments avoid laying off police officers and firefighters.)

"I know that senators and congressmen are concerned about the debt," says Harkin. "But if there's one area where it should be not just permissible but wise to borrow from the future, it's education. There isn't a family in America that wouldn't say it's okay to borrow money to help their kids go to college. Why is it wrong to borrow money to make sure there's a college for those kids to go to?"

Why, indeed? It is a mantra of the deficit hawks that they are working to ensure their children and grandchildren will one day have the same opportunities that they have had. But right now, in real time, those same children and grandchildren are having those opportunities taken away. Assuming that the deficit-phobes' concern for the young, and for America's future, isn't simply a cloak for other agendas, they need to support Miller and Harkin's legislation. Their bills protect America's future -- and that future is now.

meyersonh@washpost.com

Rhee, budgets, and "school reform"

Rhee, smoke and mirrors in the D.C. schools budget

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s mantra is performance and accountability, and more performance and more accountability.

She is, in fact, getting ready to judge teachers under her new IMPACT evaluation system, and, presumably, will lop off, figuratively, the professional heads of those who don’t score high enough. That’s accountability in action.

But what about Rhee’s own performance?

To look at the unnecessary and damaging mess over the proposed contract that she negotiated over two-plus years with the teachers union is to wonder whether she could pass an evaluation as tough as the one she set for teachers.

Reaching a contract with the teachers after years of painful negotiations was seen by many as excellent sign that Rhee, and the teachers union, were both able to make painful concessions. Rhee, with her take-no-prisoners, I-am-always-right style, saw the value of compromise.

To fund teachers’ raises in the contract, she secured private funding from foundations--apparently without checking whether the city’s finance folks would sign off on such an arrangement.

Unfortunately, school advocates in the city say that Rhee is the most secretive superintendent in memory, as well as the one who demonstrates the least understanding of budgeting. In the past, the public had a chance to see proposed school budgets early in the process and comment on them. Under Rhee, information is tightly held and only those around Rhee see the budget until she has to formally give it to the D.C. Council.

Even something as routine as releasing enrollment projections for the District became a drawn-out affair; it took my colleague Bill Turque, who covers Rhee, months to get them. Why? Nobody knows.

Figures from the D.C. Council show that under Rhee, there has been an increase of $60 million, or 28 percent (from $217 million to $277 million) in expenditures in private school tuition, transportation and fees paid to lawyers who handle cases of students who need to be evaluated by the system. (The city pays to transport special education students to school, whether they are in public or private schools, a program that for years suffered from huge cost overruns.)

And there is this, which speaks to Rhee’s unrealistic budgeting: The projected overrun for this in the current year is about $50 million. But Rhee’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2011 is $6 million less than the projected cost for this year.

That’s just one example of bad budgeting. The list is long.

So what have we got? A powerhouse of a superintendent who is bent on doing whatever she thinks she has to do to achieve her goals.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to understand--still--that reforms only work when the people who have to implement them are on board. She can make bold pronouncements and she can start all kinds of new programs. But if she keeps damaging her own credibility, it is not likely that she will be in the city for the very long term to see that the reforms are put in place.

And yet again, D.C. school kids will be left behind. 



Read the entire piece at:  washingtonpost.com/answersheet

California school budget cuts- Megan Fox

Featured on Funny or Die, a viral comedy video site, the Woodland Avenue Elementary PTA’s “Hot for Teachers” video features Brian Austin Green and Megan Fox facing the devastation of budget cuts at the school. Meant as a funny exaggeration, the video lays the blame of the $17 billion in budget cuts in the hands of the governor and asks the question, “When is enough, enough?”

Visit the Say No To Cuts website to:

·        Sign a petition to Gov. Schwarzenegger

·        Contact State Assembly and State Senate Officials

·        Join the California PTA’s “9 Million Reasons to Speak Up” Campaign

Poizner, Whitman are truth challenged !

Republican candidates for California governor blast each other to claim they are  tougher than the other on “illegal” immigration.

 While the state legislature and the governor have taken over $17 billion from school funding, national test data (NAEP) place California students near the bottom of the states on math and reading scores.   Thousands of teachers and police are layed off,

For 2010, the  Republican Governor proposes  further draconian cuts in Cal Works, IHSS, Medi Cal and Children’s nutrition  among others-  each of which hurts the  poor in our state.   State  budget cuts make the crisis worse. They create more unemployment.

With all this going on, the Republican candidates for governor are lambasting each other on the air waves for not being tough enough on illegal aliens.

What caused the economic crisis?

 The nation  including California is suffering a severe recession.  Forty-Two state budgets are in crisis.  Twenty Six million  are unemployed and under employed. This crisis was created by finance capital and banking, mostly on Wall Street ,ie. Chase Banks, Bank of America, AIG, and others.   Finance capital produced a $ 2 trillion bailout of the financial industry, the doubling of our unemployment rate and the loss of 2 million manufacturing jobs in 2008.  Fifteen million people are out of work.  You and I, and college students did not create this crisis.

Meanwhile, the main candidates of the Republican party thing that the problem lies elsewhere.   As the Sacramento Bee editorialized,

From an editorial in the Sacramento Bee. April 6, 2010.

“So will Republican gubernatorial candidates Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman step up and admit they're misleading California's voters about college students who are also illegal immigrants?

Both have been bashing the students as a financial burden on taxpayers to prove their tough-on-illegal immigration bona fides to the party faithful. They both want to repeal Assembly Bill 540, which grants in-state tuition to some non-residents, including some illegal immigrants.

But as The Bee's Susan Ferriss reported last week, those students represent a tiny fraction – 1 percent or less – of all students in all three of the state's higher education systems. On University of California campuses, for instance, there were fewer than 2,000 students who were not state residents but were paying in-state tuition in 2007-08 – and UC says only as many as 400 were illegal immigrants.

So the savings from rescinding AB 540 would be far less than the candidates suggest, a minuscule portion of the higher education budget.”

We would have to conclude that these candidates are truth challenged- and this is only the primary campaign.

April 7,2010.

School budget cuts and the economic crisis

I was watching the Sacramento City School Board discussing their impending budget crisis. 

Like newspaper writers, they discuss the economic crisis as if  the crisis is a neutral act, or as if a natural act.  Like rain or snow.  The school budgets are  a disaster not because of   some natural phenomena.  The crisis was created by people and policies of our government and of the financial system.

"The reality is that we got into this mess because of an overwhelming excess of greed and stupidity on the part of the Wall Street bankers and the people deciding economic policy. We continue to face excessive rates of unemployment because of a continuing reluctance to pursue policies that can restore the economy to health.

Very briefly, one of these policies is more government spending to create jobs. The government can employ people directly; it can give companies incentives to employ people, and it can give tax cuts that give people more money to spend. Mix and match in large enough quantities and we will get the unemployment rate down to more acceptable levels."

Dean Baker

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/01/the_second_great_depression_bogeyman/?ref=mp

Director. Center for Economic and Policy Research.

California budget and school funding

The Governor’s School Budget: The Race To Mediocrity

Peter Schrag. excerpts.

Those expectations represent far and away the biggest chunk of the governor’s “solution” in closing the state’s $20 billion deficit. The governor vows that if he doesn’t get all the money he wants from Washington, he’ll totally wipe out some of the health, welfare and other social services programs that he’d already cutting to the bone. But those cuts – plus his proposed raid on a major state program for young children – would affect the chances of closing the state’s achievement gaps almost as much, if not more, than cutting school spending.

(That Schwarzenegger accompanied his demand for the federal money with attacks on the federal health care program and, more generally, on the feds for stiffing California -- by inference a slap at California’s congressional representatives -- hardly improved his chances for any sort of federal help). 

In addition, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the governor seems to be counting on nearly $900 million in estate tax revenue the state probably won’t get and ignores the cost of tax breaks for “green” technology.

But those are only the most obvious parts of the cadaverous budget plan he sent down the other day. Schwarzenegger pretends that it was the recession which put the biggest hole in his budget. But in fact the largest single element was the cost of litigation growing out of the baseless assumptions and illegal cuts in Schwarzenegger’s prior budgets. This year’s budget has a lot more of the same.

And while the governor tells Californians that he’s fully funding education, by almost every definition his budget falls well short of that. He’s whacking $1.2 billion out of administrative school funding even as the state and feds are demanding more from school administrators. And since “administration” includes everything from truant officers to school buses, it’s hard to know from where he expects the local districts to get it. He assumes that districts can save another $300 million by contracting out for services, but since many are already doing that, it’s hard to know where they’ll get it.

From the California Progress Report.

Read the entire piece at; http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/?q=node/7350

Educators launch "Fight for California's Future"

Educators respond to Governor and Launch “Fight for California’s Future”

Created 01/14/2010 - 1:00am

By Marty Hittelman
California Federation of Teachers
Governor Schwarzenegger is leaving a clear legacy – a legacy of saying one thing and doing the opposite. On Wednesday, he claims he is not going to cut education; but on Friday he proposes to reduce the Proposition 98 guarantee by $892 million in 2009-10 and $1.5 billion in 2010-11. The governor proposes to eliminate the sales tax on gasoline (which helps fund Proposition 98) and increase the fuel excise tax (which does not help fund Proposition 98). How does that protect education?
The $892 million reduction in 2009-10 is more than the maximum that California could receive over four years in the Race to the Top funding, which the governor claims is so important to California. Of course, the more than $17 billion in cuts to education over the last two years dwarfs both of these amounts.  Schwarzenegger is using the budget crisis to promote some of his favorite issues, none of which would benefit the majority of people in California.
The money is clearly not the issue for the governor in the “Race to the Top” legislation.
First, he cuts $17 billion over the past two years from education, and suggests another $1.5 billion in state reductions in this budget proposal.  Then he turns around and says we need the $700 million in federal money.  Clearly, the money isn’t the priority.  He supports Race to the Top as a way to force his values on California’s educational systems.
•  The “reforms” that the governor wants will do little to improve education and in some cases will do actual harm.

Charter provisions:  Charters are no panacea; studies show as much success and lack of progress in charter schools as in our ongoing school structures.
Pay for performance:  Has never been shown to be effective at increasing learning. It has been shown to upset cooperative efforts within schools.
Open enrollment:  Only parents who can afford to send their children to non-neighborhood schools will be able to benefit from SB 4.
Parent trigger:  No educational justification is required, just 50% of parent signatures on a petition, which can then create chaos, divert attention from the work of education, wreck the lives of students, teachers, principals, and community as schools are closed or turned over to new operators with no track record of success. The 50% threshold is only likely to be met when someone with money comes in to organize the parents in order to form a school under their control.
Data on student performance:  Data can be helpful if used to inform teachers of what is working and what is not. But it is an expensive and difficult proposition to implement.
•  This legislation further underfunds education and implements mostly unfunded mandates. Many school districts have already opted out of California’s Race to the Top proposal, as it will likely result in unfunded requirements with uncertain benefits.  California was already 47th in the nation in per pupil spending before last year’s cuts.  Few districts can afford to participate, and many (e.g., Ventura, Santa Rosa) are already opting out.
•  The CFT will not sign the state proposal to the federal government to support California’s plan for Race to the Top as there is no official plan to support. Our locals are still free to sign on to their districts’ Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) if they so decide.
The governor is proposing a cynical constitutional amendment to boost the percentage of public higher education spending over prison spending. While we agree with the intent to increase higher education funding and reduce prison funding, the governor has already demonstrated his lack of commitment to public higher education.  Last year Governor Schwarzenegger and the Legislature reduced CSU funding by $500 million, and UC by $800 million.  Now he is using concern over the future of UC and the CSU to promote his long-standing goal to privatize prisons.
The proposal he has come up with does nothing to insure prison population reduction, or to limit tuition fee hikes at UC, CSU or community colleges.  Working families are being priced out of public higher education.  UC student fees are now over $10,000 per year.  CSU student fees are nearing $5,000.
There’s a reason police and firefighting are public functions, and the same goes for public education and public health. We are not in favor of taking incarceration out of the hands of public accountability and allowing private interests to profit from the misery of the incarcerated. This will not lead to better rehabilitation of prisoners, or necessarily save the state money.
Currently and historically, there are great problems with privatizing prisons:  for example, just last week in Kentucky the state’s governor ordered 400 women removed from a Corrections Corporation of America-run prison after continuing allegations of sexual misconduct and assaults by male guards.  They will be returned to a state run prison.
Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the country, contributed $100,000 to Schwarzenegger’s failed “Budget Reform Act” ballot measure last April.  The governor’s proposal for a constitutional amendment to privatize prisons must be a coincidence.
Rather than this, the people of California should support AB 656, Assemblyman Torrico’s proposal for an oil severance tax to help fund UC, CSU and the community colleges.
The California Federation of Teachers has an alternative to these bad ideas.  We are launching a campaign, the Fight for California’s Future, to protest the cuts proposed for education and other vital public services, to restore California state government so that it works for all the people, and to secure the state’s future through fair, progressive tax policies.  We will be joining with other education groups on March 4 for a day of action around the state, and the following day will kick off a march from Bakersfield to Sacramento with a coalition of organizations to highlight these issues and alternatives to provide for a positive California future. 
Over the past fifteen years the top one percent of California income earners has increased its share of income from 13% to 25%, but its tax responsibility has gone down from 11.3% to 9.3%, leaving the state without 5-6 billion dollars/year.  Last year, the governor’s budget lost the state billions of dollars of corporate taxes in the long term in exchange for a modest short-term boost; we will work to repeal this corporate loophole.  We will also advocate for a split roll tax, and other progressive taxes that ask the most affluent to do their fair part to help the state.
We don’t think the problem is that the majority of Californians don’t like taxes.  Most polling says otherwise.  The problem is that to raise taxes takes 2/3 of the Legislature instead of a simple majority, and just over one third of the legislature has taken a “no new tax” pledge circulated by Grover Norquist, a man whose stated goal is to destroy government services that benefit working families.
The Campaign for California’s Future will educate the public about how this works over the next months and years, and ultimately we will help turn California around.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marty Hittelman is President of the California Federation of Teachers.
The CFT represents faculty and other school employees in public and
private schools and colleges, from early childhood through higher
education.

From the California Progress Report