School funding issue moves to fore

Educators await Schwarzenegger's decision and demand money deferred under Proposition 98

Sunday, December 5, 2004

By Aurelio Rojas -- Sacramento Bee

In the movie "Kindergarten Cop," Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a police officer who is given his most difficult assignment: masquerading as a teacher to solve a crime. In his second year as governor, Schwarzenegger faces a more daunting task - improving California's flagging schools while righting the state's projected $6 billion deficit without raising taxes.

He demonstrated his political prowess this year by getting education leaders to defer $2 billion due schools under Proposition 98, which guarantees a minimum level of K-12 spending. Now, as the economy improves, school officials are demanding the money as the Republican governor prepares to announce his proposed 2005-06 budget next month.

School officials also believe they are entitled to an additional $1.4 billion under Proposition 98's revenue-growth formula.

"The teachers and children of California gave the (general fund) $2 billion, and now that there's more revenue, we think we should get our share," said Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Association.

Education advocates say the governor's decision will signal whether he is serious about supporting schools after a first year in which he devoted little time to educational issues.

Richard Riordan, Schwarzenegger's secretary of education, said the governor "is working very hard on local control and accountability in schools and a number of other projects," but declined to elaborate on his plans for education.

"I think I'll leave that up to him because I don't want to step on his State of the State address," the former Los Angeles mayor said in an interview.

Schwarzenegger rarely talks in detail about education, and Riordan has kept a low profile since apologizing for a classroom joke gone awry.

Bonnie Reiss, a former Hollywood lawyer who is a top aide to the governor and his chief liaison on the state Board of Education, has emerged as Schwarzenegger's "chief education adviser," said Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.

A close family friend of the governor, Reiss has no previous background in education. But O'Connell calls her "very smart," as do others in the Capitol who have dealt with her.

"The governor's biggest contribution to public education so far are his appointments," said O'Connell, a Democrat. "Other than that, it's been a blank slate in terms of policy initiatives."

Michael Kirst, a professor of education at Stanford University, said it is premature to grade Schwarzenegger's education record because of the state budget crisis.

"He has been fighting a number of four-alarm fires that he feels are higher priorities," Kirst said. "There really is no program at this point, except to defer funding and keep the accountability system in place that he inherited from his predecessor."

The administration is awaiting more revenue data - which could arrive this week - before calculating how much extra money schools are entitled to this year under Proposition 98.

Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill has recommended appropriations be kept at existing levels to help address the ongoing gap between state income and outgo. School officials have vowed to fight that approach.

"That wasn't the deal we made with the governor," said Scott Plotkin, executive director of the California School Boards Association.

Under former Gov. Gray Davis, who often referred to education as his "first, second and third priority," spending for K-12 grew by $5 billion between 1998 and 2001 before revenues dried up from the high-tech boom.

Davis made reading to children in classrooms a staple of his public persona. Schwarzenegger, who assumed the budget deficit that led to Davis' recall, has spent more time campaigning against what he sees as profligate spending by Democrats.

"I think we've done an incredibly good job with the (education) budget, considering the state was bankrupt," Riordan said. "We actually added $120 per student during the (2004-05) fiscal year."

Riordan said Schwarzenegger also deserves credit for signing legislation that will shift control of hundreds of millions of dollars to school districts. The money was previously tied up in nearly two dozen state-dictated programs called "categoricals."

Riordan lauded Schwarzenegger for settling a lawsuit by African American and Latino students seeking more qualified teachers and better books and facilities. Davis spent $20 million contesting the suit.

Kerr said the settlement was welcomed by teachers and demonstrated the governor's commitment to addressing "inequities" in public education.

"But frankly, there's no new money - it's just a shifting of money," Kerr said. "If we really want to deal with inequities on a long-range basis, we're going to have to fund public education at a higher level."

California, which ranked fourth in the nation in per-pupil spending in the 1960s, is now 30th.

O'Connell and other education officials believe there is a correlation between school funding and standardized test scores, which have flattened in recent years.

"We can quantify $9 billion of additional money that schools were entitled to over the last year, but didn't get," he said.

O'Connell said the number of school districts teetering on insolvency grows each year. But Riordan said schools need to become more financially responsible.

"You look at charter schools that are being run on a lot lower budgets than some of the public schools, and they basically do a great job in controlling their budgets," he said.

"It can be done, but we have a stranglehold by a lot of special interest groups in this state, and they've got to let go or we're going to be in big, big trouble."

Kerr said teachers "believe strongly in accountability," but they need more help to educate California's diverse student population.

"I believe that we are going to have to face, at some point, the fact that if we want the state to be as great as it can be, we're going to have to put in more resources," she said.

Plotkin said California needs to develop a long-range plan for education that would allow schools to weather economic downturns.

"Everybody keeps telling us, 'You ought to run this like a business,' " he said. "Well, I don't know any business in America that operates on a year-to-year basis - with no planning."

The California Quality Education Commission, created by the Legislature two years ago, was supposed to determine what it would take to adequately educate students.

The commission never met. Schwarzenegger's California Performance Review panel, which is studying ideas for reorganizing government and saving money, has recommended disbanding the commission.

"They're afraid the commission could come to the conclusion that schools are substantially underfunded," Plotkin contends.

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Last modified: December 7, 2004

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