Education? Chalk Up an F for the Governor

I keep thinking it’s going to be impossible for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to outdo himself, and he keeps reminding me never to underestimate him.

For two years, he’s been telling us public education in California is one of his top priorities. In his State of the State speech Wednesday, he said schools are a disaster, with 30% of high school students dropping out. This followed a grim Rand Corp. report that gave California schools lousy grades for funding and student achievement.

So what’s Big Boy going to do about it?

Take an ax to education funding.

Yeah, that oughta get Johnny reading.

“Devastating,” state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said of the $2.2-billion cut expected when Schwarzenegger’s budget is released Monday.

With no clear plan for balancing the budget, mountains of new debt, and so many close friends in the anti-tax business community, it was obvious that a day of reckoning was fast approaching for Schwarzenegger. But who would have thought he would drop a hammer on the state’s children?

It’s too bad they aren’t represented by the state Chamber of Commerce.

Some educators were left speechless by news of the cuts, probably because it’s hard to talk while removing a knife from your back. Schwarzenegger promised last year, while whacking education funding, that he’d keep schools off the chopping block next time around.

And do you know how Schwarzenegger, who keeps saying he represents the will of the people, is going to make that $2.2-billion cut? He’s going to trample on Proposition 98, the education funding protection approved by California voters.

See what I mean? And he doesn’t even blink when he feeds us this stuff.

Not that Big Boy’s State of the State didn’t score a few points. The governor wants caps on irresponsible spending, he wants redistricting so we don’t end up with so many left-wing nuts and right-wing kooks in the Legislature, and he’s gunning for the dastardly prison guards union.

But on education, you would have expected more from a guy who has used schoolchildren as political props, and who struts around talking about blowing up boxes. While he preens -- is it me, or is his hairdresser toning down the reds? -- other states are leaving us in the dust.

Education Week reports that 31 states are rethinking how they finance public education. In 16 states, angry parents and children’s advocates got so fed up with the sorry state of public schools, they sued for adequate funding.

In California, state spending per pupil has gone from among the highest in the nation, before Proposition 13, to the company of backwater cellar-dwellers. When Warren Buffet made the unforgivable mistake of telling the truth about the crippling effects of Proposition 13, Schwarzenegger vaporized him.

Money alone can’t fix the schools, but the wealthiest state in human history ought to be ashamed of its status as a national laggard. This has gone on for so many years that mediocrity has become acceptable, if not something to applaud.

Do you think we couldn’t fix this if we really wanted to?

Parents of means, like Arnold and Maria and their pals, don’t have to worry. They have the choice of shelling out for private school or moving to one of the handful of well-heeled communities where public schools actually work.

Parents without means?

Good luck and God bless.

The only saving grace in Schwarzenegger’s plundering of California schools is that it might get people ticked off enough to do what the governor doesn’t have the courage to do.

Chris Cabaldon, of EdVoice, is exploring support for a statewide parcel tax.

Mike Kirst, a Stanford University professor, says he thinks it’s high time to join other states and organize a lawsuit that would require reasonable funding.

Phil Angelides, the state treasurer, says the top 1% of California’s income earners will get $12 billion in federal tax cuts this year. He wonders why Schwarzenegger can’t borrow an idea from Govs. Wilson and Reagan and temporarily squeeze the top tax bracket.

“There needs to be some radical, systematic overhaul,” says Jeannie Oakes, a UCLA education professor.

“Ninety-nine percent of California’s kids are in districts spending less than the national average. California is No. 8 or 9 in terms of personal income per capita, and we are down around 30 or 40 in the country in the percentage of income we devote to education.”

Oakes noted an obvious irony: The governor is willing to move heaven and earth for California’s business leaders, arguing that we can’t afford to have them leave the state.

But if we don’t fix the schools, who are they going to hire?