State School Spending Gap Debate Grows

Notably absent from Gov. Gray Davis’ State of the State speech was the issue of overall education spending, which is headed for the front burner of public debate this year with or without him.

Signature gatherers are on the streets for two ballot initiatives aimed at raising education support to the national average of about $6,200 a year per pupil. And just hours before the governor’s speech, Republican Assemblyman George Runner of Lancaster floated his own proposal for lifting California to the national level.

“We will be confronted with it one way or another,” said Runner, who has vowed to bring his bill back later this year after it failed to clear the Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday.

New Jersey invests almost $10,000 a year in each public school student, nearly double the $5,600 California spends on each pupil. California ranks in the bottom third across the nation.

Current proposals to bring California to the national average raise fundamental questions of price and feasibility.

Would it cost the $2.4 billion the Republicans estimate, a sum that comes with performance strings attached? Or would it cost the $4.8 billion the California Teachers Assn. estimates in the November ballot initiative it is pushing?

Because California is so big, some critics contend, increasing spending here simply bumps up that ever-elusive national average. One education researcher called it the Lake Wobegon effect, citing Garrison Keillor’s mythical Minnesota town where “every child is above average.”

Beyond that, since the nation’s top spender--New Jersey--ranks far below average in student test score results, is increasing funding really prudent?

“If the whole average is moving up and performance is flat, it raises the question about does money really matter,” said professor Bruce Fuller, co-director of the Policy Analysis for California Education institute at UC Berkeley.

To that end, Runner built into his five-year phase-in a requirement that statewide academic indicators rise by 5% every two years for the increases to continue. This type of formula is criticized in the organized teaching ranks.

“It’s like a doctor saying, give them a little medicine and then, if they get better, give them an actual dose,” said Bob Cherry, associate executive director of the teachers union. “But if they don’t get better, we’ll stop giving them medicine because they don’t deserve it.”

Runner said it is more like trying some medical treatments and, if they don’t work, suspending them.

The CTA initiative also rolls out over five years, but sets as its goal the national average at the start of the five-year period.

In his only recent comments on the national average issue, the governor recently said that if the CTA initiative means a tax increase, as he expects it would, then he will not support it. During the gubernatorial campaign, one of Davis’ primary opponents--billionaire Al Checchi--made the national average his calling card, gaining the backing of state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin.

Then there’s Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper, who is trying to qualify an initiative that would tie publicly funded vouchers for private schools--at $4,000 per student--to an increase to the national average for students remaining in public schools.

Draper said he’s hedging his bets. He thinks vouchers are the answer to fixing public schools, but “it’s possible that I’m wrong and all the people who want just more spending are right. By doing both we’re going to solve the problem one way or another.”

What all of those promoting national average schemes know is what public opinion polls have consistently shown: Californians overwhelmingly support reaching for the national average in education spending and a majority want to go even further.

All three plans call for an across-the-board increase, which would equally benefit the suburban districts many Republicans represent. Much other education funding is distributed based on needs and flows primarily to urban districts.

But some suggest such disbursement, while politically more palatable, is fundamentally flawed.

“We ought to set as our goal getting to the national average, but it’s important that we . . . look very carefully at where resources are needed most,” said Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), who during the recent legislative hiatus held hearings across the state on low-performing schools.

Steinberg said he would favor targeting those schools that have the highest percentage of non-credentialed teachers. A recent study indicated that 20% of teachers are non-credentialed at more than a third of urban schools.

Even if a funding and spending plan are devised, determining what the state average really is will remain a tortured task. Robert Turnage, education coordinator with the state legislative analyst’s office, called it “as much art as science.” Turnage was asked to determine the costs of Runner’s proposal over five years and came up with between $460 million and $480 million a year, for a total of about $2.35 billion.

“There are a lot of statistical hazards in this exercise,” he said.

Analysts snag on whether to include all special funds, such as aid to poor schools or for disabled students. They get tripped up deciding how many students to count--those enrolled in school or the average actually attending on any given day.

The two charts most commonly cited are one produced by the federal Department of Education and another by the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the National Education Assn.

The NEA ranks California about 31st, the education department says about 36th. Both show improvement as education spending here has increased in recent years, bringing California up from near the bottom of the pack.

But a new paper by the conservative Pacific Research Institute cited broad inequities among districts. The Los Angeles Unified School District will spend about $9,000 per student this year, when all funds are counted, the institute said, while Sacramento Unified School District will spend about $6,900.

Proposals for increasing spending need to establish a clear link to student performance, said co-director Lance Izumi.

“If the money did make a difference, if it were just money, then you should see in all these places kind of a uniform improvement,” he said. “The test scores should be at a higher level than the rest of the state and, of course, they’re not.”