‘Starving’ Schools Need Tax Hikes, O’Connell Says

Stepping up his campaign against the governor’s proposal for education spending in the coming budget year, California’s elected schools chief called for higher taxes Monday as the best means to “stop starving our schools.”

Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, in his second annual “state of education” speech, painted a dark picture of the state’s school-finance system, linking students’ poor performance, when measured against those in other states, with its near-bottom ranking in school spending.

“We have created world-class expectations for our students and schools in California, but we simply aren’t funding our schools at the level they need to produce world-class results,” O’Connell said. “California is not investing in its future.”

O’Connell and other Democratic elected officials have been criticizing Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget plan, which was unveiled earlier this month. They are urging parents, teachers and others to protest the governor’s proposal to provide schools with about $2.3 billion less than they are entitled to under Proposition 98, a voter-approved initiative that guarantees a minimum amount of the state budget for education.

To help the then-new governor close a record budget deficit last year, education leaders agreed to forgo about $2 billion in Proposition 98 money. Schwarzenegger promised that he would give schools the full amount due this year but changed his mind when he realized that the state was still facing a large deficit. O’Connell and other Democrats have urged the governor to raise tax rates on the wealthiest Californians, who have benefited most from federal tax cuts.

The governor, however, has stuck by another promise -- not to raise taxes -- and his aides said he is unwilling to gut healthcare and other social services to the poorest Californians to provide more money to schools in the 2005-06 budget year.

As it is, the governor’s budget calls for an increase in education spending but not as much as promised.

“The budget problem the governor has inherited was not caused by Californians being taxed too little,” said H.D. Palmer, the governor’s spokesman on the budget, “but by a spending system that is driving the state to spend money it doesn’t have.”

Palmer said the wealthiest Californians pay 73% of the state’s personal income taxes. “It’s not as if we are not taxing high-income people,” he said.

On Monday, O’Connell repeated his call for full Proposition 98 funding and urged voters to back an initiative -- now in the planning stages -- that would lower the margin of approval for local parcel taxes for schools from two-thirds to 55%. The measure would give school districts a way to raise money for teacher salaries, smaller classes and textbooks.

Schwarzenegger has not taken a position on the parcel tax proposal, Palmer said.

Even with a 25% increase in per-pupil spending -- significantly less than the governor proposes -- California would remain behind several other states, including New York, New Jersey and Wisconsin, O’Connell said.

By not providing schools with adequate budgets, O’Connell said, “we are setting our students up for failure. I believe Californians will refuse to do that.”

In a wide-ranging, 45-minute speech in Sacramento, O’Connell also reiterated his earlier call for free preschool for all 4-year-olds, at an estimated cost of $2 billion to $2.5 billion.

He also announced that he would form a special advisory council to align instruction from preschool through college, and promised to continue his push for high school reforms and for measures to combat childhood obesity.

Among other measures aimed at improving students’ health, O’Connell said, he wants to expand a statewide ban on sodas in public elementary and middle schools to high schools.