Keith,

Have you ever asked the star to cover the story? It sounds crazy and I know I would like to know more.

I want to know the name of the company that legally stole money right from the classrooms. Don't you?

Brian Dennert

If that's true (and I REALLY want to doubt it) then we need PICTURES of this going on. That's a story for the Star to pick up.

At a time of budget madness in this state, we certainly don't need anyone gaming the system for financial gain. That might sound naive given the parties involved, but still...

Painters without paint... and flags up on Saturday. Intriguing. We need to spread the word about such abuses if they're indeed happening.

Tim

Keith,

I don't believe it. Can you prove it?

At the schools I went to in Simi Valley from k-12 kids handled the flag.

Brian Dennert

If the voters of Simi Valley believed Tim Keaney knew what was best, then I suspect he would be on the School Board. It is easy to be a critic when you have no clue as to what you are speaking. When you've worked as a teacher or classified member, walked in our shoes, then maybe, your comments will have meaning. Until then, they ring hollow.
Perhaps people do not want out-sourcing because they do not want people working with their children who may have criminal backgrounds. Walmart out-sourced their custodial services to a group which hired illegal aliens. In order to save money I suspect the companies we would out-source to, would not want to pay for criminal background checks.
As for funding, I agree that the governor should no longer spend $60 million dollars a year to have a secretary of education, when we have a democratically elected Superintendent. California currently ranks 44th in the nation in per-pupil funding, but second in large class size. If you want to talk about real education reform lets talk about smaller class sizes for all children. Let's talk about having the federal government fund their un-funded mandates. Let's talk about intervention programs. But guess what? Real reform will cost money. As long as the governor and his supporters have the motto of "Pack em' deep and teach em' cheap" California schools will continue to lag behind. Personally, I believe California is the greatest state in the Union and capable of doing much better for our schools. I feel sorry for those of you who are satisfied with mediocrity, I'm not!
Sincerely, Arleigh Kidd

Arleigh,

Welcome to the debate. I appreciate the fact that you've shared your views with my readers. You are a respected educator and I am looking forward to debating our views, which are clearly different, in order to create the educational experience all of our kids deserve.

That's what this blog was created for in the first place.

So now, for the debate.

Your comments about not walking in your shoes are very telling. The shoes I walk in are those of a parent. One with two kids in our schools. I also sat on my site council for 2 years while the school's API score shot up forty points because of good academic commitment and planning. I take no credit for that, other than that the parents at the table had a say with how funds got spent, and educational excellence came first. My kids attend a school with no library and no computer lab to speak of. No arts programs, no meaningful science programs and termite infestations that would make you cry. All, right here in beautiful, downtown Simi Valley.

But apparently being a parent, and just walking in those shoes don't matter. Nope, we don't want opinions from THOSE people.

As for outsourcing, I am intrigued that your only argument against it is that WalMart did it and blew it. Well, they certainly did blow it and should pay the price. But, SVUSD is not WalMart, and ANY legislation allowing outsourcing (which currently is against the law) could/should contain language demanding criminal background checks for any employee that will be anywhere near kids. That's common sense. Our schools are large enough and spend enough money to be able to DEMAND this of vendors.

If Sacramento can have legislation demanding that the Anaheim Angels not be called the Los Angeles Angels (true story) then they can legislate just about anything.

So assuming such legislation demanded criminal background checks, I assume you'd be supportive? Especially if the savings could restore classroom supplies budgets, or better, lower class size?

You and I agree we could lose some of the institutional mediocrity in Sacramento. I think between the costs associated with state bloat and the like, we could have the types of early intervention programs you speak of.

What other programs in the California budget would you suggest the governor cut in order to provide better school funding? We have 70,000 Caltrans employees waiting around for work because there is no highway funding!

I look forward to hearing more solutions and the continued debate.

Tim

Tim,
First of all you may want to actually read the current law. School Districts can out-source now, but they have to prove it will result in a savings. In terms of being a parent, so am I. I have a student at Hollow Hills in SVUSD and at Hillside M.S. I was on Valley View's site council for eight years.
In terms of where would I cut, I wouldn't. I would increase revenues. See as an adult, I believe we should pay our debts and obligations as we go. I don't believe in the republican mantra of "Let's borrow and borrow until the debt payments are so high we can't afford to spend on programs for average people". Governor Arnold cut the car tax and then had to borrow 15 billion dollars. Our state will be paying that money back for years to come.
What really amazes me about "education advocates" like yourself, is that you have said nothing about the governors broken promise to our schools. Last year the governor came to the Education Coalition and made a deal. This year he is breaking the deal and his promise. In terms of his "increased" funding for next year it actually breaks down to a net increase of 2%, not 7.1%. (Take out the new mandates on districts, cost of living, population growth, and the billion dollar shift to counties.) I actually hope we do have a special election in November, it will be a referendum on the governor, and he will lose. The majority of people in this state want the schools properly funded and they are rejecting the so-called "fixes" coming from the White House and governor. Sincerely, Arleigh Kidd

Hello:

I am interested in this "deal" that was struck. We keep hearing about this "deal" and "broken promises" certainly designed to attack the "trust" component of the Governor’s public image, but I don't remember any deal being written in a legal contract. Why would the educational establishment agree to a deal that would not allow for legal recourse if it was broken? Would you ever agree to a union contract orally and hope the school district doesn't go back on their word? I don’t think so….

Also, proposition 98 guarantees a minimum level of funding for our schools. If this is being violated, where is the legal recourse? I mean the unions have a ton of money to raise the negatives of the Governor on TV, so they should have the $35.00 to file a lawsuit and get proper funding restored. If it’s the law being broken, it needs to be enforced. I keep seeing protest signs that the Governor is violating prop 98, but if he is, wouldn't the school districts file lawsuits like the County law enforcement did in their fight for minimum funding with the Board of Supervisors. I suspect he hasn’t broken the law at all nor can he when the budget is finalized on June 30th. The establishment just wants to ensure the public thinks he has, which is highly misleading.

Here is another question. Have you set up meetings with the people you are facing in the streets like Audra Strickland? Instead of standing out front an office building with cardboard signs, why wouldn't you just go in and talk to these people and work at a solution? I thought problems were for solving, not for exploiting for political gain.

Sincerely,

Scott Blough

At this point the governor has "Proposed" suspending Prop 98, it will take a 2/3rds vote by the legislature to actually do it. If the legislature goes along then no lawsuit could be filed. The deal that was made with the governor was that in exchange for taking 2 billion less this year, that he would NOT propose suspending Prop. 98 next year. Instead in January he proposed once again suspending Prop. 98 and shorting schools by another 2.4 billion dollars. Please call his office and ask for a copy of the press release he put out last year, saying "With this deal today, I promise to restore full Prop. 98 funding next year". When he was running for governor he said "Prop. 98 will be cut only over my dead body. Cutting Prop. 98 is somewhere I would not go." His proposed initiative to cap state spending would also allow Prop. 98 to be cut up to three times a year. We are currently 44th in per student funding, I guess Arnold wants to get us to 50th.
We have met with Strickland, Richman etc many times. They smile and say "We support schools. We support local control." Of course when you point out the the federal "No Child Left Behind" law takes away local control they get a blank look in their eyes and say "It does?" Perhaps that is why the republican governor and legislature in Utah just rejected NCLB statewide.
Last January we did try to meet with Tom McClintock in Sacramento. We were waiting outside his office to see his Chief of Staff. Tom then walked up in the hallway and we said hello. He asked who we are and we told him we we are teachers from his area. Upon hearing this he turned pale and started stammering "I can't meet with you, I'm too busy" he then turned and ran down the hall.
In terms of the governor, if you guys want to defend a lie, be my guest. Arnold and George are leading the charge in a race to the bottom.
Sincerely, Arleigh Kidd

As a teacher, I wish we'd stop fighting over non-sense and decide what's important in our state. Education is important, but so is honesty. The Governor's "Deal" with the state didn't say the prop 98 funding would be restored THIS YEAR. It said "In future years".

Here it is right from the state web site:

Highlights of the agreement include:

Per pupil funding still increases year over year.

Funds deferred by the rebasing process will be restored in future years.

Trigger provisions contained in Prop. 98 that allow the funding level to be rebased in a fiscal emergency. The measure was included in Prop. 98 to relieve the budget burden in a fiscal crisis.

Increase year-over-year funding for education from the 2003-04 budget act to the 2004-05 proposed budget by $2 billion.

This was last year's DEAL. The state should really stop wasting money so it can better fund schools.

Lisa

p.s. Great Blog - I just found it and will pass it on.

I don't understand why the educational leadership would sacrifice educational funding for children in the previous year with the governor without having an air tight control to ensure he fulfilled his end of the deal. Maybe, it's because the "deal" was nothing more than a good photo op.

No one negotiates for a car or even landscaping on an oral agreement, let alone billions of dollars in educational funding without having triggers to ensure its enforced.

Second, why is the education establishment negotiating with our proposition 98 in the first place? If the voters voted for prop 98, isn't it pretty presumptuous that unions and school boards suddenly are negotiating our prop 98 from year to year? They were negotiating with something they do not own. We, the voters put that in the constitution, not the unions and the school board association. I think if any deal should be made, it should be made with those that put it there in the first place, namely the voters.

According to Esource.org when discussing the prop 98 formula it states, "During both 01-02 and the 02-03 budget cycles, the K-14 allocations were cut or deferred midway through the budget year in order to lower the amount of the guarantee for the following year."

Where were the protests under the Gray Davis administration when these cuts occurred? I mean since prop 98 depends on the prior year's funding, and these cuts occurred to manipulate next year's formula, you'd think the leaders in education may have said something. I think it's pretty politically timely that suddenly prop 98 funding is a big issue when in previous years it was reduced without a peep.

Is the Governor lying when he proposes 3 billion more in educational funding this year, which he did in a radio address on 2/12/05? Doesn't this contribute to that rebasing formula?

Arleigh: How much more would be needed to fulfill prop 98 with our state's general fund? How much are your protests asking for? Since democrats control the legislature, how much are they proposing above the governor's 3 billion dollar increase?

Sincerely,

Scott Blough

1,000 pardons, the site I quoted from is edsource.org not esource.org. Happy fact checking...

Well Scott, you're right. We should never have believed Arnold or made a deal with him because he is a liar. When the elected legislature went along with the deal last year to forego the 2 billion dollars they did that for the people they represent. That is the definition of a "Representative Democracy". The people don't vote on everything, they elect people to do that for them. In terms of the "3 billion" let's break it down. 1 billion will be passed through to cities and counties to make up for the lost car tax money, this money won't go to schools, but it was included as money going to schools. The governor is proposing to shift 500 million a year in STRS payments to districts, something they never paid for before. The cost of gas, supplies etc have gone up by 2.7% CPI, Callifornia will also have more kids to educate next year, it basically works out to a 2% net increase for districts over last year. The promise the governor made was to fully fund Prop. 98 next year. Tax revenues are up and based on that schools are owed another 2.4 billion next year. Don't forget that in the past four years schools were cut by 9.8 billion dollars. With Davis tax receipts fell, that lowered the funding base on 98, and yes the education coalition protested at that time. Also under Prop. 98 the state is supposed to repay 3.9 billion over the next five years, Arnold would like to extend that to 15 years. The facts are the facts.
Arleigh

Scott,

Are you honestly saying unions/teachers got tricked because Arnold said it publicly and openly, BUT not on paper?

No wonder Arnold's approval ratings are falling, he is just another in a long line of politicians that you can't pin down on anything.

Hope everyone is having a great evening,

Brian: I honestly don't know. What I am saying is that oral agreements have a way of being misinterpreted and can be changed based on an individual’s memory and certainly individuals can flat out lie about what was said or promised. I think if we are going to ignore prop 98 for a year, you should have some sort of written contract, so both parties know exactly what is expected in the following year. Because it was an agreement without recourse, we can argue all day about what exactly was meant and said. Then, it becomes partisanship or whose team you are on rather than constructive dialogue and compromise. Even on the blog today we have one person saying the Governor meant to repay 98 in the next few years while Arleigh has stated the Governor meant this year.

I’ll explain from a strategic point why I think the Governor is polling low. He made the Jimmy Carter mistake, which was to propose a whole bunch of legislation, make a lot of people angry, fail on certain measures, and look ineffective while doing it. He should have proposed one or two reforms at once rather than 4-5. Stayed on message and pushed as hard as hell to get it through.

My suspicion is that proposition 98 will be funded higher than last year on June 30th and would like to see increases as the state is returned to fiscal health because we are being more prudent now. What I do not want to see as I think Arleigh, Tim and others agree is the state continue to spend without revenue and must file chapter 10 bankruptcy like Orange County did in the early 1990s, which was not due to overspending, but risky investments by an unaccountable treasurer just to make that clear. If we file bankruptcy as a state, then state financial decisions will be determined by a bankruptcy judge and New York debt holders. Not a pretty picture.

Arleigh: Maybe I misunderstood, but when you said you would break down the 3 billion the Governor is promising you only showed us that 1 billion was going as pass through to cities and counties. Can I deduce that the other 2 billion go to the schools and further understand you correctly that we are only arguing over 400 million dollars because you said that, "Tax revenues are up, and based on that are owed another 2.4 billion next year."

Where is the 1 billion that goes to cities and counties going? Is 1 billion going to crossing guards, DARE, School Resource officers, city bus service that continues to be further encroached financially, yet is packed with students each day, and even funds for different programs at the boys and girls club? Are those all needed benefits that school districts receive? Would you rather see the school districts take those programs over and receive the billion dollars to run them? If the 3 billion went to the schools instead of other jurisdictions that help in different educational areas such as crossing guards, would you then say that school received a surplus of 600 million dollars? I imagine the answer is because we are short 9.8 billion over the past four years, schools are still owed 6.8 billion. So no matter what, its not good enough... Arleigh, if you got 3 billion, would you be protesting that it's not 4 billion?

Doesn't this sound like every piece of government from the Pentagon to the Social Security Administration? If every agency is underfunded, then how is there ever anyone who is accountable? Every bureaucrat can just say when mistakes are made, we don't have any money. Arleigh, should government be accountable and responsive or should we always accept that they never have enough money?

Have a great evening.

Scott

Scott,
Okay, one more time. Based on the law, Prop. 98, passed by voters in 1988, schools are owed 2.4 billion dollars more than the governor is proposing. This is based on the law and higher tax revenues. The governor wants to suspend Prop 98 and can legally do so if 2/3rds of the assembly and senate go along. Last year however, he promised to not ask for another suspension, now he is. Prop. 98, the law, also has a provision to pay back Districts over a 5 year period for money they are owed because it was not funded, the back pay is another 3.9 billion dollars. The governor wants to repay that money now over 15 years, that is against the law, that is why he is proposing an initiative to change Prop. 98. Of course this is also in the context of our state being 44th in per-pupil funding. In 1988 our state was 49th in per-pupil funding, after Prop. 98 we had climbed to 35th, in the past four years we dropped back to 44th. Thirty years ago California was $400 above the national average in per-pupil funding, today we are $600 below. In terms of how to fix the problem we should look at Prop. 13. When Arnold brought in Warren Buffett to help "fix" California the first thing Warren said was "You need to fix Prop. 13". Of course then it was goodbye Warren. Prop. 13 should not be touched for home owners or small business, but it does need to be changed for large corporations. Many of the biggest corporations in the state a paying less in property tax then a new homeowner, even though they have much bigger and valuable properties. Corporations are basically bought and sold all the time as shares trade hands, yet their property tax goes unchanged. We also need to have California corporations pay their state income tax, remember the story earlier in the year about multi-million dollars companies in California paying no taxes? Todays L.A. Times has a great story on over-crowding at California high schools and George Skelton has a great column on the governor.
Arleigh

Arleigh,

You ask me why I'm always for "cutting things" like that's a bad thing. We wouldn't be in this mess if our leaders had some courage and backbone and were actually capable of saying NO to every special interest group that knocked on the door.

I'm also not a lunatic who thinks government should get out of education. I'm all for the government being involved as I think it's a necessary investment in our future and security. What I am opposed to is all of the other LARD that government spends its money on, such as:

1. Bailing out corporations without taking an equity stake...
2. Farm subsidies..
3. Blue ribbon panels that meet twice a year but whose members make over 100K
4. Duplicative government agencies like the State Dept of Education & the Sup of Education office, or the Franchise Tax Board AND the State Board of Equalization

And the list goes on and on. Robert Samuelson has a great article in Newsweek this week on this very subject.

You also bring up Bush and the Governor as if I am lock-step with them. Actually, I think these guys AREN'T doing enough to change this country for the better. We have a passion in this country for mediocrity, and I'm with you it's not good enough.

So now - back to the things that interest us:

NCLB - You're right that Utah is saying goodbye to NCLB. Doesn't sound like an unfunded mandate to me - sounds like an opt-out. Sounds like they want the increased federal dough, but not the accountability that goes with it.

Prop 98 - Since the CTA wrote prop 98, you should know what's in it, what it's suspension guarantees are and the like. Again, the governor has made PROPOSALS, but it will be interesting indeed to see the budget when it's released tomorrow.

There are more than one way to look at things - that's what great about this country. We all have our say. I really wish there were more courage in our leaders to do more than pay lip service. Cutting services or programs to help fund education more fully is in our nations' best interest. You can't argue with that. You can't say that taxes are the only answer. Clinton didn't think so when he and Gore moved 100,000 americans off the Government payroll into the private sector (reinventing government initiative) or when he moved welfare moms into work. These were GOOD things because the old things weren't working.

Tired excuses and inaction are simply not solutions anymore Arleigh.

Tim Keaney

Hello again,

Arleigh, I pulled the press release dated 1/8/04 as you advised me to do entitled, “Gov. Swarzenegger, Member of the Education Coalition Announce Education funding Agreement." I read through this a few times and don't see anywhere in this release where it says the whole amount from the rebasing will be paid in the following budget year as you and Skelton with the LA Times claim.

Second paragraph, " The agreement would keep proposition 98 structurally intact for future years while providing 2 billion in budget relief for the 2004-05 year" Does future years indicate to you that it will be paid next year as this is one of many future years.

Here are the highlights word for word in the fourth paragraph.

"Highlights of the agreement include:

Per pupil funding still increases year over year.

Funds deferred by the rebasing process will be restored in future years.

Trigger Provisions contained in proposition 98 that allow the funding level to be rebased in a fiscal emergency. The measure was included in prop. 98 to relieve the budget burden in a fiscal crisis.

Increase year-over-year funding for education from 2003-04 budget act to the 2004-05 budget act by 2 billion."

Since the Governor is proposing 3 billion currently and per pupil spending has increased, albeit not enough, isn't liar a little strong of a word? It does say rebasing in "future years" not this year. Since you are at the CTA now, can you pull the agreement and show me where the Governor says he'll pay it back this year?

Also, I think you assume too much that funding equals school performance. I think there are many other factors involved that contribute to school performance. I too am not lock step with anyone, but seek to find answers and work to improve the lives of those in our community as you do as well.

I asked last night about accountability and am still awaiting your thoughts just as I asked about the cities and counties’ role in helping the school district with the billion dollar pass through you discussed.

Lastly, the one thing I respect about the governor's plan is that he has stated a tax policy and a spending policy. The CTA, school boards, and the protestors in the street are upset by the spending proposal, but I do not see them out in public asking for a tax increase as you are arguing for in this blog. Why is that? Why doesn't the CTA just come out and say, we support higher taxes to make up for the 9.8 billion you are saying schools have been shorted?

Seriously, the CTA and others should walk around as candidly as possible and give the voters a real decision on raising taxes for more funding. I agree, that we can't deficit spend as it is unhealthy for the overall economy, but also prefer to see spending controls before the voters take a tax increase on the chin. Are you saying you are for tax increases that would reduce your teacher’s salaries in the CTA? Remember, California’s tax burden is 24% above the national average and we have been ranked by many companies you wish to tax higher as a factor in California that makes it non-competitive with the rest of the country and western states.

Sincerely,

Scott Blough

Tim, Scott,
I agree that there is a lot of government waste that needs to be reformed. I think we all agree we want better schools for our kids, even if we don't agree on how to get there. All we are asking of the governor is to follow the law and fully fund Prop. 98 next year as he PROMISED he would. If he does are schools will see a 2.4 billion dollar increase. Keep in mind that even with that increase we will be well below the national average. As the richest state in the union I have to ask why we spend less on our children then 43 other states? Arleigh

Arleigh and Tim:

If we all agree there is waste in government. This may sound naive, but Why don't the three of us get together and come up with a waste control plan for the Simi Unified School District?

Arleigh, I agree per-pupil is too low, but I think it could be raised if people would sit down and find areas where government can squeeze every cent to the student. I also know administrative costs are killing the amount students are seeing.

I know we all have our disagreements as has been seen in these blogs, but maybe if for only one moment, we could sit down and stop focusing on areas where we disagree, we could deliver a better local effort for our kids.

Tim, How about it? Maybe, if we merge some business principles that you have with what Arleigh knows about the schools, we can fix some of these problems.

C'mon, if Newt Gingrich and Hillary Clinton can get together on Health Care, I think we owe it to the community to get together and develop a cost containment proposal.

I think what we could do for the community if we started focusing on the problems is limitless.

Thoughts???

The governor's May revise budget is out. In it he admits that he is breaking his promise on Prop. 98 and shorting it by 2.4 billion dollars. In order to fund other areas of the budget he is cutting education funding for children. He also is still proposing to shift 469 million dollars in STRS payments to local districts to pay. When he claims to increase funding by 3 billion why isn't he man enough to say "Oh, and also, I'm putting billions of new mandates on districts meaning the net increase is only 2%".?
Arleigh

Arleigh and Tim:

I think with the ongoing challenges at the state level, it is going to require all possible resources and ingenuity at the local level. I am ready to work with you and Tim on a sort of ad hoc budget task force to improve education in Simi Valley. Whether we agree or not is beside the point as this is really for the future of public education.

Scott

The Governor could fully fund Prop 98 this year, except that he won't because he's afraid to upset any other constiuences obviously. He would need to aggressively cut waste, fraud and redundancies in state government. He probably figures he's ticked off the teachers and the safety workers, so why cut the Coastal Commission? At least he's not adding any debt, or accessing the prop 57 bonds - Those are good things.

This summer's budget negotiations will indeed be interesting.

Scott - I think you're on to something about coming up with a plan, however, because of the nature of the funding, I would suspect our group would have to be more of a Sacramento Lobbying group than particluarly focused on SVUSD. Besides, if we can address the bigger, more fundamental problems of funding in general, SVUSD is a natural beneficiary.

So I would be all for working together to generate a plan to present in Sacramento. We can call it Edplan2020. A 15 year plan to re-prioritize CA govt into 3 areas:

Education
Transportation Infrastucture
Public Safety

And review, prioritize and suggest areas for efficiences, cuts and largesse that could be re-purposed into those 3 areas.

I'll buy lunch - Anyone?

Tim Keaney

I predict there will not be a budget signed in California before December 1st. I hope I'm wrong. So what are some specific ideas to look at Scott and Tim? Arleigh

Arleigh and Tim:

I say we start locally, so we really identify state constraints. Tip O'neal used to say "all politics is local" and I think if we were to identify areas that are highly regulated by the ed code and those that are not, it would pay dividends.

Arleigh identifies money as a major problem while we identify waste as a major problem. But, I feel we all are blind men feeling different parts of the elephant here. Each one feels a different part of the elephant and comes to different conclusions.

What if both are major problems? We have too low funding and too much waste. Those two problems are very serious when put together it says 1. districts don't have enough money and 2. districts aren't managing money well. That's a pretty scary combo for the kids.

I'd like to work to develop a survey for teachers and administrators, so we can work on identifying the problem and identifying needs. I'd like to identify where teachers and administrators feel money is being wasted. Once, we identify some issues there... We can sit down and figure out what we can do about it.

There was a report that came out a few weeks ago that stated school administrators lack training in their jobs. I want to know what sort of business management experience we have here. Has anyone read that report? I tried to find it, but haven't had success.

I think we focus like a lazer beam on operational processes for now in the school district from supply/inventory management to accounts payable operations. We develop recommendations based on operational work such as how they are managing invoicing, controlling bus costs further encroachment on the district's general fund, and so on.

There has been a lot of advances in the business world in these areas and I want to know if the school district is tapping into these new methods.

The last thing I want to say is I don't have the all the answers, but I do know that the lack cooperation and strong partisanship is a major roadblock in public service for fixing the problems. And, the people usually suffer threefold when no one works together because nothing happens. I think in the spirit of improving schools, we all should put down the ammunition and pick up our combined God-given tools to build a better school system.

Now some will say this will never happen and it's too utopian of an idea, I say we gotta try... What say you?

Scott

Tom McClintock has an op-ed piece in the Daily News today. As usual he claims distrcits receive 10,000 plus per-pupil. If this were true Simi USD would have a 210 million dollar budget, when in fact they have a 135 million dollar budget. Sorry Tom, your numbers don't add up. Arleigh

Here is an article from the the progressive policy institute from last summer. How well are we preapring tomorrow's workforce? How can we do it better.

I know funding is a major issue on this page, but I want to start thinking and addressing a results driven system of educaiton...

Introduction

With some notable exceptions, our public schools are doing a woeful job of teaching students about the world outside America's borders. For example, surveys conducted by the Asia Society and the National Geographic Society show a huge gap in most students' knowledge about the growing importance of Asia and other world regions to our nation's economic prosperity and national security. The surveys find that 25 percent of our college-bound high school students cannot name the ocean between California and Asia. Eighty percent do not know that India is the world's largest democracy. Young Americans are next to last in their knowledge of geography and current affairs compared with young adults in eight other industrial countries. The overwhelming majority cannot find Afghanistan or Israel on a world map, but know that a recent "Survivor" show was shot in the South Pacific.

Meanwhile, K-12 language instruction does not reflect today's realities: Only about one-half of today's high school students study a foreign language, with the vast majority at the introductory level. Moreover, 1 million U.S. students study French, a language spoken by 80 million people worldwide, while fewer than 40,000 study Chinese, a language spoken by 1.3 billion people. None of this should come as a surprise, since our teachers are not prepared to teach about the world. Most prospective teachers do not take any international courses and have low participation rates in study-abroad programs.

These trends have serious consequences. In the 21st century, young people who understand the dynamics of global economic and intercultural relations will have a distinct advantage in securing good jobs. Those with knowledge of world history, languages, global health, and international affairs will be able to make informed decisions as voters about domestic issues influenced by global circumstances. By the same token, with an entire generation lacking in that knowledge, the United States is in danger of putting itself at a competitive disadvantage.

Globalization is causing policy and business leaders to call for new competencies to advance U.S. competitiveness, leadership in global markets, scientific innovation, security, and proactively improve international relations. These emerging realities of the globally interconnected world have been documented in both national and state-specific reports. Already, one in six American jobs is tied to international trade. Our trade with Asia now equals more than $800 billion per year, a figure that has surpassed our trade with Europe since 1979. The majority of future growth for industries of all sizes will be in overseas markets. Meanwhile, in addition to economic considerations, solving new national security and humanitarian challenges, such as terrorism, AIDS, environmental degradation, and poverty, will also require increased knowledge of other world regions, cultures, and languages. Increased diversity in our nation's classrooms, workplaces, and communities, including new immigrants from many different parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, requires greater understanding of the myriad cultures and histories students bring to school. These new realities demonstrate that future workers seeking careers in business, government, health care, law enforcement, and a wide variety of other jobs will all require global knowledge and skills.

Unfortunately, our K-12 schools do not have the capacity to respond to those demands. Recent reports from the Southern Growth Policies Board, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and Harvard's curriculum review committee confirm that most U.S. students lack sufficient knowledge about other world regions, languages, and cultures, and will not be able, if current educational practices continue, to be effective employees of globally-oriented organizations. Members of minority groups are especially underrepresented in international courses and careers. In today's world, the status quo is tantamount to a kind of educational isolationism. That is unacceptable. To meet future workforce needs and provide equal opportunities for disadvantaged and minority students, our schools need to expose all students -- not just those from affluent families -- to international content earlier in their education.

Arleigh,

Elsewhere in this blog you state that I don't have my facts straight. Well your post about McClintock and that "his numbers just don't add up" is truly telling.

You see, the $135 Million that Arleigh is talking about is the unrestricted general fund of the SVUSD. It does not include over $100 Million in restricted dollars that the district gets, that it is REQUIRED to spend on various required programs. $135 mil + over $100 mil equals over a $235 mil budget - There's that fuzzy math again!!

And thank goodness for those restricted funds. With almost 90% of the unrestricted general fund going to salary and benefits, that's just $13.5 million for ALL discretionary spending.

So as you can see - Arleigh doesn't like to tell the whole story, which is misleading, or disingenuous, or both.

Tim,
Talk about fuzzy math. With the restricted added Simi is at 185 million. The problem is that the restricted side does not pay for itself, because your republican buddies do not fund their own mandates, meaning an encroachment on the general fund. Also, salaries also come from restricted funds. McClintock presents his 10k figure as if it is all un-restricted. Get your facts straight. Arleigh

Good Evening,

Pg. 3 of the SVUSD 04-05 budget with 45 day revision states total funds of $277,214,874. Of course, these are not all general fund dollars where we can put things wherever we want. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could?

Arleigh: I gathered from the McClintock article that he is saying this is what a school would look like if we didn't have so much bureaucracy and controls.

The term "Modest Proposal" is a methaphorical device that derives from author Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal", which proposes a radical solution to poverty. McCLintock is merely speaking in such way to make light of the wasteful practices going on in our districts and state that you yourself admitted last week in these blogs is going on. Below is a portion of McClintock's "modest proposal"

"The governor proposed spending $10,084 per student from all sources. Devoting all of this money to the classroom would require turning tens of thousands of school bureaucrats, consultants, advisers and specialists onto the streets with no means of support or marketable job skills, something that no enlightened social democracy should allow.

So I will begin by excluding from this discussion the entire budget of the state Department of Education, as well as the pension system, debt service, special education, child care, nutrition programs and adult education. I also propose setting aside $3 billion to pay an additional 30,000 school bureaucrats $100,000-per-year (roughly the population of Monterey) with the proviso that they stay away from the classroom and pay their own hotel bills at conferences."

Is it possible to have a leaner school system? Arleigh: You have argued in the past that there is waste in government and I think McClintock is saying precisely that if the education bureaucracy was restructured we might see cost savings and more money coming to the classroom, teachers, and students.

Scott

I know it's been argued to raise taxes to pay for more education funding, but I think a more workable solution for the CA economy is cost savings programs and lean bureaucratic management of education resources. Below is a study on manufacturing jobs in CA...

If we raise the tax burden by either rolling back prop 13 or raising income taxes, won't we lose these corporations to less expensive states? Second, if these jobs are lost, won't we lose income tax revenues that are currently going to education?

California Has 1 Million Manufacturing Jobs "Up For Grabs," Report Finds

A new report from the Bay Area Economic Forum analyzing California's manufacturing industry identifies 1 million of the states 1.5 million manufacturing jobs as "up for grabs" in the future. Given the worker's compensation rates, electricity rates, corporate tax rates, and administrative burdens that all rank amongst the nation's most burdensome, California is at risk of losing a significant portion of an essential sector of the economy. According to the study, manufacturing supports 1.5 million and 4.5 million direct jobs in California and generates $150 billion of gross state product per year. However, since 2000, 312,000 of jobs have left the state. The study recognizes that not all of those loses were due to California's high expense of business operation; nonetheless, the study warns that if public and private steps are not taken to reduce the burden on businesses, California stands to lost considerably more.

For the full study, including data and recommendations, visit the Bay Area Economic Forum's website at http://www.bayeconfor.org/keyecon.html .

Scott,
In terms of the actual District budget, it is around 135 million in terms of the actual dollars that are used to run the District and that are discretionary. The fact remains that when you compare apples to apples, McClintock and Tim prefer apples to oranges, that California ranks 44th in school funding. I think there are cost savings areas we can all work on, First let's have Tim write an open letter to the governor asking him to eliminate the Secretary of Education=savings of 70 million. 2nd, let's cap profits for insurance companies that give workers comp insurance. They are making big profits and not passing along all the savings to employers, SVUSD is also getting hit and this would free more dollars for the classroom. 3rd, let's reform Prop 13 so big corporations pay their fair share, this will increase school funding without increasing taxes on homeowners or small business, lastly let's work together to pass healthcare reforms proposed by Sheila Kuehl, we cannot bring down rates until everyone is insured, just like with car insurance. We can take the savings from rate decreases in employee health costs and use them for more general fund dollars. The answer is not to keep cutting employee benefits and salary as Tim seems like he wants to do because then we cannot attract and retain the most highly qualified teachers for Simi Valley classrooms. Lastly Arnold is now saying he never made a promise, even though he is on record as making the promise and on record with the Sacramento Bee saying he broke his promise. Did not another famous Austrian once say "The bigger the lie, the more believable it becomes."? Arleigh

Arleigh:

Are you using a quote from Hitler to legitimize your argument? I don't accept Hitler as an authority on anything, but cold-blooded murder and senseless brutality.

Hitler was an awful awful scum of the earth SOB and is responsible for the Holocaust and the murder of millions. We must never let the Holocaust happen again anywhere. I am sure your intention was not to use him as an authority for your argument. Was it?

Scott

Ok -now we're getting somewhere! This is an awesome discussion, exactly what I wanted the blog to become. This is about ideas and solutions. HOPEFULLY someone is reading the blog, sees the contrast in ideas and will pass the blog around to friends, families and government officials.

Arleigh has made quite the list of proposals above. All very interesting and worthy of review.

So... given the clamor from Brian and Arleigh for me to write an open letter to the governor (I don't know why they want me to write an open letter - don't the Voters of Simi know better yadayada? I heard that somewhere). I suspect they think I have more influence than they let on - but I digress.

Ok - so if there was to be an open letter - I would need Arleigh to sign it as well. WHAT a coalition this could be!!! We've seen what Arleigh would put in his open letter (which this blog is BTW) but HERE is what I would put in mine:

Dear:

I have been asked by education leaders to write an open letter to you to ask that you reform education in our state once and for all. California schools, by and large, are not preparing students for the 21st century. In fact, early 20th century pedagogy exist still to the point that our schools are just simply ineffective (with exceptions) to help our kids compete on an international platform.

In order to help our schools along in this regard, I would like to suggest the following steps to reform Education in California, and lead our state out of the educational wilderness:

1. Merge the State Department of Ed & the State Superintendant of Public Instruction offices into one office. Eliminate redundant staff positions, responsibilities and levels of management and put those dollars into the classroom.

2. Allow districts to pool purchasing power for services and allow districts to purchase healthcare together to increase buying power and lower costs.

3. Invest a % of the State general fund to school infrastructure every year instead of floating bonds every 5-7 years. Te debt service on the bonds alone could pay for classrooms, libraries and the like.

4. Sue the Federal government for a redress of California's grievances in regards to the costs of illegal immigration. We are educating hundreds of thousands of children of ILLEGAL immigrants every year in our schools. The federal government should pay to help us through this.

5. Require Public agencies to have CFO's.

6. Require Public disclosure in executive summary form, agency spending and budgets and REQUIRE that these important public documents be posted online on district web sites.

7. Require that 20-25% of a district's discretionary genral fund be spent on classroom supplies, lowering class size, technology investments.

Ok - I am ready to sign the letter - Does anyone want to create letterhead for our coalition?

Tim

Scott, Tim,
No, I am not comparing Arnold to Hitler, except in that Hitler would tell the same lie over and over until it was believable, and both are Austrian. If you read George Skelton's column today in the L.A. Times called "Governor is digging himself deeper with denial of school funding deal." you will see how Arnold is dodging the truth, and telling a lie. I think any public official who knowingly lies should be removed from office. And yes, that would include Clinton and Bush. Tim in terms of signing the letter it was supposed to be only about the governor totally abolishing the Secretary of Education in order to save 70 million a year, that office is not needed and should not be rolled into anything, it is a waste of taxpayer money. On your other ideas we would have to discuss them further, some have merit, some do not, in my humble opinion. It was reported in the Sacbee today that republicans in Sacramento will not support any budget because they believe it will be better for them in a special election. Talk about special interests, republicans in Sacramento are there only to serve their corporate over-lords, not the people of California! Let's sign a letter to recall all republican state senators who do not plan on working to pass a state budget in good faith! I am also looking forward to seeing the new movie on Enron, I heard there is a scene, where during the energy blackouts in California, that Arnold and Ken Delay of Enron have a secret meeting, at the same time Enron was ripping off California for 38 billion dollars and creating our current budget mess. Also in Arnold's current TV ad, he runs every 10 seconds, he claims the legislature spends $1.10 for every dollar in taxes. Take a civics lesson Arnold, the governor signs it and the governor has line-item veto authority, even the president does not have that. I also understand Arnold is going on another across the country fund raising bash, at what point will he actually do the job we hired him for? He needs to quit leaving the state and start working with the legislature. Arleigh

Arleigh,

The California Legislature is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic party, which holds vast majorities in each house.

How is it, that not one Democratic legislator will introduce legislation to eliminate the Department of Education, or cut funding to it?

Now there is an open letter I'd like to see!

Tim

Tim,
We need a Department of Education. What we do not need is a Secretary of Education because we have an elected Superintendent. The Secretary of Education is a cabinet level post, created I believe by Pete Wilson at a cost of 70 million a year. What did Riordan do as Secretary of Education, besides telling a poor child her name meant dirty and stupid in Spanish? I would rather have the democrats own the legislature then having Chevron and Phizer own it the way they own Arnold. Arleigh

Oh, I've heard that story somewhere. The dark evil corporate overlords control the dark side, and only our hero, Annikan (Arleigh) Skywalker can prevent the forces of evil from corrupting our beautiful, albeit bankrupt state.

Listen Arleigh: answer a simple question this time, without a swipe at the President, Governor, Corporations, Republicans, Small Businesses etc...

The democrats control the legislature. Why won't ANY democratic legislator propose to eliminate the state DOE, the Cabinet position, merge with the SUP office or fundmentally review this waste of taxpayer money?

It's a simple question. I'd welcome a reasoned answer.

Tim

According to today's papers, counties are banding together to protest the call for a special election. With the cost now at 80 million and growing, counties claim they cannot pay for it. They want the state to foot the entire bill. The registrar of Yolo County has said she will only hold the special election under court order. Looks like Arnold's special election could force counties to seek tax increases, or cuts to services. Also Scott, I forgot to mention that Arnold has also taken to producing propaganda videos to create the illusion there is support for his ideas as documented in several papers and currently the focus of an investigation. Of course we also know that Bush had taxpayer money spent to hire radio talk show hosts to push NCLB. A story in today's Times shows how Bush places young people in the audience to ask the "right" questions on gutting Social Security. Arleigh

Arleigh:

As I see it, you are arguing for four proposals to help schools.

1. Eliminate the Secretary of Education position.
2. Mandating Health Care.
3. Worker’s Compensation Reform
4. Proposition 13 Reform

I am not sure how these help education in the slightest. We live in a free society where self-reliant people are motivated to make money and enjoy a life they work for. I would never accept the type of paternalistic state you are arguing for and do not need government thinking for me and limiting my choices in society. If we regulate the economic entrepreneurship our whole state would suffer. We do not need taxes and regulation in California as high and fierce as Germany, which has unemployment at 18-22%.

I will accept the elimination of the Secretary of Education. However, I am concerned because the democrats had this position for years as we went into severe debt by 1,000 spending programs and this was never on the table until we had a republican governor. Sounds pretty politically motivated.

Mandating Health Care ensures that California will be on the road to rationing in the long term, which offers a severe drop in health care quality for patients, particularly seniors, which is the number one concern for the public in the health care debate. Second, how do you ensure people have health care and follow the law, when people still don’t even have auto insurance years after it was mandated? This also allows more government regulations and bureaucracy, which would encourage less personal responsibility on the part of a free society. I would support government creating financial incentives for private companies to come up with an affordable catastrophic coverage health care proposal for all Californians to start. Arleigh, I would hate to go to a health care provider and find out the service is like the DMV….

I would love to see reduced worker’s compensation costs, but profit caps are not the answer. First, profit caps ensure that competition, the main driver for reduced prices, is limited. If we instituted profit caps it would unfairly hinder smaller companies from entering and competing in the market and only the largest asset-sized companies would be left to determine price. Profit caps ensure that competition would be severely strained further guaranteeing monopolistic practices in the state and elevating prices. Second, a profit cap system would encourage large worker comp insurers to develop legal structures to manipulate price. Remember, the energy crisis first developed by out of state energy companies holding back natural gas from the California market, but also developed because of the state-mandated profit/price cap structure for Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric. These companies had to buy natural gas at increasingly elevated prices while only being allowed to give the consumer a state-mandated price to ensure SCE and PG & E could not take too much in profits. If you want to ensure job loss and company bankruptcy you would definitely want to propose price and profit caps.

Your proposal was seen in waning years of the Soviet Union’s Glasnost proposals. Supermarkets began to be able to price items and get a profit, but were then forced to purchase wholesale at specific prices from farms and ranching areas. This led to severe shortages because the highly subsidized agrarian areas were not motivated to grow more crops and tend more cattle. Plain and simple, when profits are manipulated or you take away a company’s ability to make a profit, you hinder competition and only the biggest who can outlast any competition survive. Price manipulation and profit controls ensure higher prices for the consumer.

Our Lt. Governor proposed changing proposition 13 to the structure you discuss. He called it “tough love” for California. He also lost badly at the polls. While it sounds good to some because it uses catch phrases like “fair share”, it is a raw deal to small businessman, the engine of growth in our state. You do not tell us what you consider a small business and a large corporation to be nor do proponents arguing to change prop 13. The real problem is that if you raise prices on the biggest corporations in the state, it encourages them to leave. My previous employer is in Jacksonville, Florida and told us as it was closing the doors on 15,000 jobs here that California taxes and mandates were just too much to compete with other companies in other states. If we are losing jobs, how is that good for education?

Second, changing the terms of prop 13 hurts small businesses and entrepreneurial behavior by increasing the cost of doing business and developing new products/services for the public. It also increases prices on the consumer. Small businesses are usually spin-offs of previously outsourced functions. Businesses decided it was not cost effective to keep this function in house, so they hired a vendor to perform this task. Well, these vendors usually have big businesses as customers, so when you create a tax structure that forces bigger businesses to leave the state; you just drained the customer lists of millions of small businesses who are now leaving the state. Any reform to prop 13 in the way you propose would further increase an already overburdened private sector to the point of collapse.

Lastly, statism died many years ago. In the era of globalization and a flatter world community, if California were to regulate the marketplace in ways you are proposing investors and venture capitalists would also remove vast sources of money from California’s investment pools and this would undermine economic progress. I want to see our school system catch up and utilize the best ideas of our entrepreneurial class and small businesses.

Scott,
I disagree. If you talk to any medical expert they will tell you that the entire medical system is set to collapse in 5 to 7 years. At the current rate of increase the entire GDP of the nation will be going into healthcare in 7 years. We are the only industrialized nation to not offer some form of medical care to everyone. If you remember the early 90s in California when car insurance was going through the roof, the solution was to make everyone have insurance. Currently when those of us with medical insurance use it we are also paying for those without it. In terms of workers comp did not Arnold push through a reform? Is he not part of the government? Therefore is not the government already involved in regulating workers comp? Therefore they can and should regulate the profits these companies make since it was government legislation signed by Arnold that is providing them the windfall that they are not passing on to businesses and school districts. If you lower the cost of healthcare and workers comp you will free more money for the classroom from the existing budget, without raising taxes. With Prop. 13 and large mega corporations do you think Warren Buffett was wrong to point out that Prop 13 is broken, or was it bad judgement on Arnold's part to have brought Warren in for advice? Besides, if Enron had not ripped off California for 38 billion dollars we would not have our current budget problems. Why was Arnold meeting secretly with Enron at the same time they were ripping off California? Also if cutting taxes and spending is so great why did every measure of the economy do better under Clinton's tax and spend? Before my father in law died he used to always tell me, "When democrats are in power taxes are higher, but people are working and have money to pay their taxes. When republicans are in power we have cheap taxes, but everyone is out of work, don't matter how cheap taxes are if you can't pay them because you ain't working." Arleigh

Arliegh,

All teachers in california, texas and eleven other states are totally exempt from paying any social security...they pay none....when are they going to start paying...this is un-american and un-patriotic, and hurting our seniors...

Arliegh,

All teachers in california, texas and eleven other states are totally exempt from paying any social security...they pay none....when are they going to start paying...this is un-american and un-patriotic, and hurting our seniors...