FUNDING ACTION TEAM

Chronicling the Cuts to Our Future

Today the headlines across the State read, “California faces a projected deficit of $21 billion”.  And this is a new projection for a budget that has been re-balanced multiple times this year with unprecedented cuts.  In July, just four months ago, the state cut $23.6 billion to “balance” the budget.  This additional $21 billion is new cuts and/or reflects the unrealistic components of the last budget settlement.
 
What does this mean for education in California?  

“Chronicling the Cuts” is a new report by the Education Coalition on how the current $17 billion in statewide cuts to public schools is impacting our students and California’s future.

Before we address a new $21 billion deficit, it is critical that we understand what a reduction of $17 billion dollars looks like at the local level for schools, students and teachers:
 
“…We have increased class size, reduced teachers, reduced support staff, eliminated programs such as Spanish, music, drama, and band. We have eliminated librarians, counselors, classroom aides, computer techs, and the GATE programs. We have reduced special ed staff and administrators. We have no funding for supplemental materials and have had to get waivers for textbook adoptions…”
- Superintendent Michele Schuetz, Auburn Union School District, Auburn, CA
 
“…We lost several key staff members. We have not been able to use our library this year because we do not have a librarian. We have lost our bilingual resource teachers, thus, our most needy students (i.e. newcomers, low-achieving students, English learners) are not being adequately served. Furthermore, we have lost 4 of our bilingual aides…”
- Teacher Betsy Vega, Santa Ana Unified School District
 
“…Since the budget cuts, ALL of our team sports have been dropped. This was a great opportunity to motivate students to do well in school and be rewarded with sports competition. It was extremely successful last year for testing purposes, as well. Our school had the highest increase in test scores in the state last year with 111 points! For the sake of our student's health, well being, social skills development and many more factors, we need to find a way to put sports back into the budget. I am a strong advocate for lifelong learning – mental, physical and emotional – and without sports, we are diminishing the future of our children.”
-Teacher Mindie Gilliland, Lake Elsinore Unified School District
 
“…My statistics class has 39 kids. The class usually has 32 students. Even with the extra tables that the teacher brought into the class, one student had to sit on a chair with a binder on her lap as a makeshift desk. The freshmen are complaining because a lot of them didn’t get biology or the math classes they need and most likely have to wait until next year to take them. A lot of teachers are teaching double subjects. We have a new Chinese language teacher who also teaches math…”
- Michelle Ruan, 17 - Alhambra High School, Alhambra, CA
 
“…All my classes are full this year. There are 60 students in my PE class! Last year, there were about 30 students in my PE class. Also, I was denied when I wanted to move from period 4 study hall to English honors. My counselor said the English class was full.”
- Freddy Tsao, 15 - South Pasadena High School, South Pasadena, CA
 
“In the magnet program, AP classes like English and art history usually have a little more than 20 people, but this year they have more than 40. People have to sit in extra chairs without desks. My teachers are trying to convince people not to take their classes instead of encouraging them to sign up. We also have about 300 more students…”
- Sam Landsberg, 16 - Hamilton High School, Los Angeles, CA
 
To put this all in perspective look at some facts from the much better days of 2007:
( http://www.edsource.org/assets/files/stu_mocklercommentary.pdf )
 
California ranks last among the states in the number of school staff per student. We would have to hire 100,000 more teachers tomorrow just to get to the national average, not to mention equaling places like New York or Connecticut.  And the closer you look, the worse it gets.  A typical school elsewhere in America has 30% more teachers and 61% more school-site administrators per student than the typical school in California.  Let’s not even talk about counselors or librarians.  California ranks 50th of 50 states in staff-to-student ratios • 68 staff for every 1,000 California students • 90 staff for every 1,000 students is the national average.
 
In 2007 4.4% of Californians' personal income was spent on public schools. By comparison, it was 5.6% in 1972 when Ronald Reagan was governor. That 1.2% difference is the equivalent of a $22 billion increase.
 
Instead in 2010 we are cutting tens of billions from the low level of funding we had two years ago.
 


Ed Honowitz
Pasadena Unified School Board Member


 
For the full press release from the California Education Coalition see:
http://www.protectourstudents.org/wp-content/uploads/education-coalition-press-conference-111709.pdf