Improving Education Need Not Hurt Taxpayers

While California’s economy has flourished during the past few years, the state’s public education system has struggled to improve. Rebuilding our education system must be the state’s No. 1 priority.

California’s schools rank near the bottom in the nation in student achievement. This is inexcusable. Attempts to remedy the K-12 system have led to a flurry of activity: New standards have been established by the state Board of Education. Class sizes have been reduced. New teachers are being trained and recruited in record numbers, and a statewide accountability system has been put into place. The state is clearly moving in the right direction. Now it is time for us to work to ensure that schools are provided proper funding to reach these new goals.

I believe that an increase in California’s per-pupil funding to at least the national average is within the state’s current abilities and that it would provide schools with ample dollars to give every student the opportunity to succeed academically.

In 1999-2000, K-12 school district revenues increased by 7.4% while total state revenues increased by 14%. Funding for education grew at only about half the rate of overall state revenues.

Governor Gray Davis’ recently released budget would provide K-12 school districts only 5.3% more money for 2000-2001, while the state’s ongoing spending would climb by 7.7%. Keep in mind that this is happening while the state’s revenues are soaring. Remarkably, the legislative analyst’s office recently projected that revenues would be $3 billion higher than the governor’s estimates. This is in addition to the $6 billion that revenues have climbed since the estimates were made one year ago. With this surplus in hand, the state clearly can afford to invest heavily in education.

The legislative analyst’s office estimates that an increase of approximately $2.5 billion would be necessary for per-pupil spending to be brought up to the national average. Therefore, I am pushing for the state to appropriate an extra $450 million to $500 million annually, beyond what is constitutionally required, over a five-year period so per-pupil spending in California reaches the national average. Even so, I believe that blindly throwing money at schools is not the solution. High per-pupil funding does not necessarily result in high-achieving students. (New Jersey, for example, spends nearly $10,000 per pupil yet ranks far below average in student test score results.)

Therefore, I have introduced Assembly Bill 1752, which seeks to bring California per-pupil funding to at least the national average over five years but would require student performance to improve over the same period. The public school system would have to show at least a modest 5% overall academic improvement, as measured by the Academic Performance Index, after the second year for the increased funding to continue, and then another 5% improvement after the fourth year. I believe this proposal is reasonable policy and fiscally prudent.

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Other proposals to increase per-pupil funding to the national average would punish taxpayers by increasing taxes or suspending already approved tax cuts. In light of the $9-billion surplus--money that has come straight from taxpayers’ pockets--this is clearly unnecessary.

The California Teachers Assn. is attempting to qualify a statewide ballot initiative to address the spending issue. This proposal is dangerous. It seeks to increase per-pupil spending but would require the state Legislature to increase taxes to fund the increase. The legislative analyst’s office and director of finance estimate that the measure would result in tax increases of $4 billion to $4.8 billion annually by 2006.

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) has proposed passing a state constitutional amendment to guarantee schools an additional $2.5 billion a year, by eliminating an already approved car tax cut--a reduction in each car owner’s vehicle license fee. Essentially, by doing away with the car tax relief, improvement in our schools would be accompanied by a $2.5-billion tax hike on working families.

California should make it a priority to use the massive surplus the state has acquired to increase education funding. We can invest dollars in our schools to ensure that our children are again able to receive the world-class education that California schools once provided. At the same time, we must return to working families the tax relief they deserve--because, after all, it is their money. By meeting these priorities, we can benefit our children in the classroom and at home.