As the Legislature scurries to address the issue of mid-year cuts, the Education Coalition recently held a press briefing on the governor’s proposed budget. Representatives of the state’s top education organizations raised a number of telling points to show how the proposed budget would hurt students.
“A state budget proposal that looks at cuts alone is not a real solution, because it doesn’t address California’s underlying problem of inadequate and unstable revenue sources,” said ACSA President Bob Lee. “It’s no secret that the resources California provides to schools and students don’t match the expectations we have set for them. If California’s goal is to raise student achievement in all of our classrooms, then the governor and lawmakers must fund our schools accordingly.”
“Our students and schools did not create the current budget problem, and their futures shouldn’t be ransomed because of it,” said CTA President David Sanchez. “The governor’s proposal would decimate the voter-approved minimum funding guarantee for schools and is incredibly short-sighted and unacceptable. In the midst of progress in student learning throughout California, this budget represents a giant step backward.”
The coalition illustrated exactly how cutting $4.8 billion from education would affect schools. The $4.8 billion figure counts mid-year reductions of $400 million, plus a cut of $4.4 billion for 2008-09. A cut of that size equates to reducing funding by $800 per student, $24,000 per classroom or $7.6 million per school district, assuming an average district size of 10,000 students.
The Education Coalition raised another important point – that the problem in the state budget shortfall is not the fault of Proposition 98. Comparing the fiscal years 2003-04 and the upcoming 2008-09, state revenues have increased by more than 40 percent. Prop. 98 funding would have only increased about 30 percent in that time, were it fully funded. Under the governor’s proposal, Prop. 98 would only increase about 21.7 percent during that timeframe, slightly more than half of what state revenues increased.
In addition, the coalition pointed out how the recent report from Education Week, “Quality Counts 2008,” gave California a grade of D+ for school funding. EdWeek ranked California funding at 46th in the nation among all the states and Washington, D.C. Quality Counts reported that California’s funding is almost $2,000 below the national average.
To further illustrate their point, members of the Education Coalition showed the other impacts that cutting $4.8 billion could have on schools:
• Shutting down every school across the state for nearly one month.
• Laying off more than 107,000 teachers.
• Increasing class sizes statewide by as much as 35 percent.
• Laying off more than 137,000 bus drivers, janitors, food service workers, maintenance workers and other education support professionals.
• Eliminating all music, art and career technical education programs statewide with room to cut even more.
“We need to protect smaller class sizes and give our students an opportunity to succeed in school,” said California state PTA President Pam Brady. “To sacrifice the gains we’ve made in student achievement and turn back the clock on education funding would be a terrible mistake.”