Broken promises that hurt kids

In retrospect, we in the education community should have known better. Politicians have a long record of promising our schools resources and support that never comes to pass. But we truly thought this situation was different. Our new governor seemed to be a straight-shooter who had the best interests of the state and the state’s children at heart, and he needed help last year to deal with a budget deficit that was out of control

We trusted him. When he looked the Education Coalition in the eye last year and said, “I need your help and I promise to protect you if you give it to me without a fight,” we shook hands on it. We agreed to a $2 billion cut last year, sharing in the “pain” to help get him through some difficult decisions. He gave his word that if we did that, he would make us “whole” by repaying the $2 billion from last year on top of the $2.4 billion we would be owed this year to keep up with enrollment growth statewide and the statutory increases in our programs. That combined figure would keep us “even” and enable us to prevent further erosion of funding.

Honestly, we should have known better. Politicians often break their promises, so it shouldn’t have been so shocking that this governor did the same. We had put our hope and our trust in him and, sadly, we are now paying the price.

Big time.

The governor’s proposed budget reneges on the agreement he made and then does even more harm: His proposal also includes dismantling the annual guarantees of Prop.98, which was passed overwhelmingly by voters for the express purpose of keeping education funding out of the political process and immune from political decision-making. The goal of Prop. 98 was to create a floor beneath which education funding could never fall. Instead, it became a ceiling over which funding would never rise.

For twenty years — two decades — California has been in the bottom quartile of state funding for public schools. This year we were 43rd in the nation. It is a very sad day when we have to fight tooth and nail to maintain a 43rd ranking, but that’s where we find ourselves. No one wishes to fight this governor; he is charismatic and powerful and people trust him. They will continue to do so until they find themselves on the receiving end of a broken promise, as we have in education.

We applaud the governor’s efforts to take on special interests – but are school children really that kind of special interest? If so, that is one special interest that the governor should share and protect, not attack.

The recent RAND report shows that money makes a significant difference to the educational process in terms of class sizes, teacher quality, facilities maintenance, and resources. It is small wonder that a state with the largest student population in the nation, the largest language diversity, a very high cost of living, and one of the very lowest levels of funding per student, finds its test scores resultantly low.

The governor claims that all we need to do is spend the money more wisely. Perhaps that was true in the ‘70s when we funded our schools at about the highest level in the nation and had the highest test scores. Maybe that was true two decades ago before we dropped to the lowest quartile nationally in terms of money available. We are so far behind the industrialized states at this point that the financial differences are as glaring as the test results.

It is our professional and personal responsibility to speak out as advocates for children and public education. It is certainly not popular to take on this governor; we know that he is skilled at making advocates look defensive or even silly. He likes calling people playful, funny names and can mask policy differences in simplistic terms that sound appealing. He is formidable and we would not be opposing his policies unless we felt it was our duty to do so. If we don’t speak out for school children, who will? Sadly, we’ve learned that support won’t come from Sacramento.