by Jack
Yesterday the League of Women Voters sponsored a forum on Props 30,31 and 38. I was invited to be one of the panelists and I spoke first, followed by three education professionals. Unfortunately, there was so much to say about Prop 30 we didn’t get to discuss the other two propositions.
The upside is, we did a pretty fair overview of Prop 30 and what we’re facing if it fails to pass and it looks like it won’t. If it does or if it doesn’t, the future for our school kids still looks bleak and sadly, it just doesn’t have to be this way! The state has the money, they’ve just wasted it on the wrong things and they have too mandates that ties up too much of the budget. Only about 14% of the budget is negotiable…what a stupid situation that is!
Most of us didn’t realize at this time when the legislature said they had a balanced budget for 2012-13 year, and that reality is only becoming known now. The Gov. and his pals gambled that voters would, approve a $50B tax on themselves at the ballot box. That’s risky budgeting.
The 2012-13 budget was fraudulent in many ways, but to bet the state budget on a proposition passing is just foolish.
Prop 30 looks like it will fail and it should fail. Sadly, that will leave a massive hole in the educational budget and students will suffer for the poor leadership in the legislature and a failure to reform the state’s massive budget.
Failed fiscal policies, over regulation, over spending, unsustainable salaries, failure to plan ahead, too many wasteful redundant programs, too many boards and commissions filled through cronyism and the list goes on and on. No wonder the dems don’t want to address these problems, there’s too many! Instead, they just want you to pony up more money for schools and let it go at that, and nothing get fixed, but the schools get a temporary budget reprieve.
Our schools are truly broke because the system has failed them. They need reform from top to bottom and the dems prefer to keep it status quo. This is why when Andy Holcombe (City Councilman) stood up (I’m paraphrasing) and said our schools aren’t broke, they are doing fine. They just need more funding. Well, I could have croaked our schools are definitely broke. How can anyone say our schools aren’t broke when various education rating agencies routinely give our schools a D- on most subjects and schools are getting a C- at best. Is this our new standard of excellence? If it is CA has fallen a long, long way.
We are spending 54% of our entire state budget to educate our kids and this is the best we can do? I don’t think so…. and 54% of a budget that ranks among the top 10 economies in the world? We’ve got a problem and it isn’t revenue.
One of the areas in need of reform is how tax money is filtered down to the schools. The state is using a strange formula, because in Butte County we’re getting about $5500 per students, while in some other areas the amount is over $15,000 per student. The highest I found was in excess of $100,000 per student and that was to keep the doors open on a few rural schools with only a few students.
Adam Schaeffer of the Cato Institute’s Center for Education Freedom seemed shocking: The Los Angeles Unified School District spent $29,780 per student in fiscal year 2007-08. That’s way above the $10,000 as advertised by the school district, and as used in most studies. When drop outs are higher than ever and students are flunking, this is just plain crazy.
The average teacher salary in California is about . Consider that UC salaries have climbed 29 percent in the past six years. Coaches make $2.9 million, and chancellors make more than the U.S. president. Our schools that are ranked 47th worst in the United States out of 50 states!
As of 2011, average teacher salaries came closer to $67,932 throughout the state. This is because of layoffs of newer or lower-paid instructors due to the decrease in state funding for the schools. Urban areas, such as Los Angeles and the Bay Area, pay their teachers anywhere from $60K to $99K a year, rural counties and smaller districts hover in the low $50Ks to $70Ks. That’s a pretty good gig when you consider the summer break, all the holidays and benefits.
And despite the money thrown at education and the poor results our Chico Councilman, Andy Holcombe, says the educational system is not broke? That’s amazing…utterly amazing.
California is so over regulated and overtaxed we’re headed for meltdown while other states with lower taxes are prospering and still Sacramento doesn’t get it!
California has the highest sales tax, the 2nd highest gas tax, the 2nd highest income tax (soon to be the highest), the 14th highest property tax and the highest Corporate income tax in the west. Raising taxes on us is not the answer to fixing our educational system and that is why Prop 30 is going to fail and is failing in the polls.
Our schools are bro?ke because the system is broke and it needs reform from top to bottom. This is why when Andy Holcombe (City Councilman) stood up and proclaimed, our schools aren’t broke, they just need more funding, I could have croaked.
More of the Holcombe hokum like when he told us a ban is not a ban.
Hokum has been a true scourge on this community.
When will he finally be the Peace Corp’s problem? I thought he’d be gone by now.
I hope the Peace Corp sends him to North Korea. He would be right at home there with Dear Leader and so would his hokum!
Jack, actually the governor said the budget depended on us voting to tax ourselves with his measures.. I am not going to approve any new tax, they mismanage everything.
A letter to the editor in todays paper is a perfect example. The residents of chico voted for a parcel tax for a new school, then of course it was decided it was not needed after all, but the monies was spent elsewhere.
How top heavy are we in this state with Education? 50% of our busget goes to education but a small percentage gets to the school kids.
I agree with an Arizona candidate for congress, he wants to get rid of the Dept. of education, as he said we collect taxes send all the money to the Federal Govenment then they disperse, why? Each state should be able to fund what is right for them.
Schwarzenegger held us up for higher taxes too, almost like a blackmail, I am really tired of it.
Breitbart today did an article based on a Manhattan Institute study disclosing terrible statistics about tax revenues that WONT flow to California due to the massive exodus going onpeople and business fleeing the state:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/29/Report-225-000-Californians-A-Year-Escaping-State-s-High-Taxes-Burdensome-Regulations-Economic-And-Public-Sector-Instability
You wont attract and keep business in California, and the jobs that go with them, with high taxes and complex, expensive regulation. Democrats seem to prefer doubling down and making it more expensive to solve the fiscal problemsor silly fixes!
The lottery promise was more of a scam in terms of financing education:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/04/us/california-educators-assert-lottery-has-failed-to-pay-off-for-the-schools.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
October 04, 1988
Fast forward:
http://www.calwatchdog.com/2010/02/25/new-did-schools-win-state-lottery/
The pension and administrator problems are obscene:
http://www.calwatchdog.com/2012/09/21/californias-public-pension-jackpot/
On a side note, this is the sort of thing your education dollars are spent on —
http://zombietime.com/teaching_as_a_subversive_activity/
More from academia and your tax dollars at work —
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Tilden%20WW%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=21553677
Thanks Harriet, that’s right… I stand corrected and made the necessary changes. My memory is not as good as it should be sometimes!
Tina: “In fact, in state after state, where lotteries send millions of dollars to public education, schools are still starved. Why?
Because instead of using the money as additional funding, legislatures have used the lottery money to pay for the education budget and spent the money that would have been used had there been no lottery cash on other things. Public school budgets, as a result, havent gotten a boost because of the lottery funding.”
If my memory, from when I was working at the community college, is correct the legislators are using a “loop-hole” in Props. 98 and 111 to supplant the state funds with the lottery funds.
Therefore, the kids are loosing big time and our elected reps get more of our money to waste.
Here is the LAO Mac Taylor Legislative Analyst 2010-2011 explaining the Prop 98 funding for K-12 education. Note the 1.9 billion cuts to K-12 and increases of $200 million for community colleges and $800 million for CSU and UC systems.
“Executive Summary
The Governor portrays his 201011 budget proposal as protecting education from additional deep cuts. Nonetheless, the administrations budget plan would affect areas of education quite differently. Under the Governors plan, Proposition 98 support for K-12 education would be cut from current-year levels by $1.9 billion, and total funding for child care and development (CCD) programs would be cut slightly more than $300 million. In contrast, higher education mainly receives augmentations, with state funding for the California Community Colleges (CCC) increasing by $200 million, and funding for the California State University (CSU) and University of California (UC) increasing by about $800 million combined.”
http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis/2010/education/ed_anl10.pdf
From Mac Taylor Legislative Analysis website.
“As Legislative Analyst, Mac serves as the nonpartisan
fiscal advisor to both houses of the California Legislature and oversees the preparation of annual fiscal and policy analyses of the states budget and programs. His offi ce is also responsible for preparing impartial analyses of all initiatives and constitutional measures qualifying for the states ballot.”
http://www.lao.ca.gov/staff/mac_taylor_bio.pdf
Remember last year’s budget fiasco? Finally passed with expectations of around 6% growth in CA – which was a fantasy from the start. But it passed so the Legislators would get paid.
This year’s fantasy figures depend on Prop 30 passing, which also looks like wishful thinking. Hey, Legislature! How about dealing with ACTUAL dollar figures instead of projections or predictions out of a crystal ball?
And the FIRST things cut in any budget overhaul should be the Lunkhead Legislators pay and perks since they’ve had the biggest hand in our fiscal disaster, with Gov. Moonbeam not far behind.
The proposed budget is neither fraudulent nor foolish. It’s a straight-proposition put to you: pay … or face the cuts.
Now, this is foolish:
“The average pension for each of those teachers in California is $1 million over a 20-year period. Which means we have created a millionaire teachers class within the California economy.”
You’re only a millionaire if the million is sitting in the bank, Jack. See, when you spread this hyberbolic blather you just undercut your position … because the pension system does want work … work, not abolition.
As long a you continue with this infuriating drivel, the pensioners dig their heels in, and we get nowhere.
Very informative post. Thanks for sharing it with us.