Posted on 04/27/2005 8:54:38 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Sacramento -- State Senate Leader Don Perata, taking a new approach to both the state budget and a weakened Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, called Tuesday for a dramatic increase in spending on education and said he will push for new taxes to repair the state's school system.
The Oakland Democrat called California "miserably behind the curve'' when it comes to school funding, noting that the state ranks in the bottom half of per-pupil spending in the nation. He said that improving schools so California students can compete in a global economy "can't be done on the cheap.''
Perata said he will demand that California increase the amount of money it spends on K-12 education by as much as $4 billion more than the $36 billion Schwarzenegger has budgeted for the coming fiscal year. Perata was not speaking for all Democratic lawmakers, and Republicans and a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger criticized the call for new spending. But as president of the Senate, he is considered the most powerful Democrat in Sacramento and his position is crucial in budget negotiations.
Perata became the first Democratic legislative leader in two years to say directly that he would support increasing Californians' taxes to raise the money.
"We have to raise taxes to pay for schools,'' Perata said Tuesday. "There, I said it.''
The Senate leader's call adds a new element to the contentious political battle this year between Democrats and the Republican governor on issues ranging from the redrawing of voting districts to public pension reform.
It also seems to highlight what political observers said are the changing political fortunes of lawmakers and Schwarzenegger in Sacramento.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
They get half the damn budget already, so just a little more and they will really gets things fixed, this time, huh?
Perata open to tax for schools
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/12795618p-13646355c.html
The Senate Democratic leader says the state should match U.S. average for education spending.
By Kevin Yamamura
State Senate leader Don Perata asserted Tuesday that Senate Democrats will seek higher taxes if necessary to boost school spending to the national average, broaching a subject legislative leaders have largely avoided since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office.
With Schwarzenegger's revised budget plan due next month, Perata told reporters the state needs to spend $4 billion on education beyond the level the Republican governor proposed in January. To pay for that, Perata said, he would rather resort to tax increases than social-service spending cuts if no other funding options could be found.
"We have to raise taxes to pay for schools," said Perata, D-Oakland. "There, we've said it."
Perata's Assembly counterpart, Speaker Fabian Núñez, was not prepared to make a similar declaration, said Núñez spokesman Steve Maviglio. Núñez, D-Los Angeles, wants to pursue other options first, such as closing tax loopholes and using some of the $3 billion recovered through the state's tax amnesty program.
"We agree with (Perata) that education is a priority and we have to protect the integrity of Prop. 98," Maviglio said. "But this is a governor adamantly opposed to raising taxes, and now is the time to get together and craft a solution."
Perata suggested two methods of raising taxes - increasing rates on the highest income tax bracket or applying the sales tax to certain services. But he said he would pursue the tax route only if the governor cannot find other ways to bolster education funding in the revised budget he presents in May.
Tax increases in any form are a nonstarter for Schwarzenegger, said his press secretary, Margita Thompson.
"It's not a revenue problem - we have more revenues coming in than ever before," Thompson said. "It's unfortunate that the knee-jerk reaction for that constituency is to tax and spend. But we have to be responsible with that money and we have to be responsible for the kids."
--snip--
Honest version:
"We have to raise taxes to pay off the California Teacher's Association for their steadfast support of Democratic candidates,'' Perata said Tuesday. "There, I said it.''
If we need such a massive injection of tax revenue to fix the schools, then who the hell was driving this junker of a state government the last few years that got us into this predicament, and why should we trust or believe anything the 'real reformists' aka the commieRats have to offer much less say they now support.
Maybe he'll propose a state lottery to help out too.......
More money for public schools is more good money after bad.
"We have to raise taxes to pay off the California Teacher's Association for their steadfast support of Democratic candidates,'' Perata said Tuesday. "There, I said it.''
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Right on target! And yes, with $10 Billion per year going to support illegal aliens in Mexifornia, it is possible the schools are feeling it...on the other hand, it has already been proven that money is not the primary issue. The bucks per student in this state are some of the highest. The problem in academia, especially K-12, is the Unions, the protection of teaching incompetence and gross education system mismanagement, and horrid student achievement levels coming out of this state...the worst in the country (exceeded only by one state)....
Perata...another Pelosi pinko lackey trying to tax Californians out of existence...all for socialist power!!!
The San Jose Unified School District closed 3 schools last year and they're closing 3 more this year. I don't know if SJUSD is at all representative for the entire state of CA, but why should i pay more taxes when we've got 6 fewer schools?
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
A "weakened" Arnold? You have to be kidding - the guy could kick everyone's a-- in the whole stupid CA legislature.
The schools don't need "more" money. We don't need "more" spent per pupil. It doesn't take a fortune to teach kids the basics; how about cutting sex ed classes? How about getting rid of school psychologists? The purpose of a school is to teach, not raise someone's kids and worry about their emotional feelings.
I like the idea of putting the state employees union rep and the teacher union rep in a room and let them battle it out over allocated funds. Could be a new reality show.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
If Arnold and/or the RINOs in the legislature go along with a tax hike, run - - don't walk - - away from Kalifornia as fast as you can and never look back. There. I said it.
It's not a physical thing, tho I wish iot were. My pitchfork and manure shovel arealways ready to roll.
The media and dems and republican consultants say he's weakened,, Maria just wants him home..
Our state needs leadership, not duck and cover reform .
The fall special election is probably dead at this point, but a special spring or summer election next year on top of the general in November could happen... could, but it will take getting a team focussed on the target and not sniping at each other over their pet issues, the environment comes to mind .
Geez....time to think about all of this crap in this DemonicRat Heaven!
looking at Lots in the Ozarks....
Maybe they can get some of the money by charging extra for putting serial numbers on bullets.
Oh, they could bypass that by calling it a "user fee".
Don't think they won't.
Amen to that. Although this article is a year old, I thought it was interesting. Since I live in L.A., this sentence ticked me off:
In Los Angeles, the true per-pupil cost in 2001-02 was $13,074, compared to the $6,740 reported by the district.
Soaring School Spending
By Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies and a resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
April 14, 2004
The United States currently spends a good deal more on education per student than most industrialized nations, yet testing shows that achievement has not kept pace with spending. Nevertheless, school administrators continue to press for greater federal spending and claim that reforms cannot be implemented otherwise.
The Bush administration has recently come under fire for insufficient education spending. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) has been savage on the subject, and Democratic candidates have attacked the No Child Left Behind Act as an "unfunded mandate."
Presidential hopeful John Kerry declares in his book, A Call to Service, that the Bush administration has "undermin[ed] education funding as part of a larger strategy of directing every available school dollar toward tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans."
In a surprising turn of events, the Bush team has responded not by calling for more responsible and efficacious education spending but by bragging about its generosity and berating states for leaving $6 billion in federal education aid unspent.
Increasing Investment, Flat Returns
The administration is factually correct, for what it's worth. Since 2001, the Department of Education's discretionary budget authority has increased by 39 percent. Title I, the main program providing federal dollars to schools serving poor children, has grown 52 percent. In the Bush administration's first two years, Title I spending increased more than during the previous seven years under President Clinton.
In fact, this entire NCLB spending debate is obscuring the fact that American schools are actually well funded, by any reasonable standard. After inflation, education spending in the United States more than tripled between 1960 and 2000.
It may surprise some to learn that, in fact, we rank at the top of the international charts when it comes to education spending. In 2000 (the latest available data), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) calculated that the United States spent significantly more than any other industrial democracy, including those famous for generous social programs.
In primary education, on a per-pupil basis, the United States spent 66 percent more than Germany, 56 percent more than France, 27 percent more than Japan, 80 percent more than the United Kingdom, 62 percent more than Belgium, and 122 percent more than South Korea. High school figures were similar.
Despite this spending, the United States ranked fifteenth among the thirty-one countries that participated in the OECD's 2000 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) reading exam. Ireland, Iceland, and New Zealand were among those that outperformed us while spending far less per pupil. The results in math are equally disquieting: on the 1999 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the United States ranked nineteenth of thirty-eight participating countries. Most troubling is that America's standing actually deteriorates as students spend more time in school.
Not only are we investing education dollars without adequate return, but we are actually spending even more than we think. School accounting guide-lines would bring smiles to an Enron auditor. Unlike private-sector businesses, public-school bookkeeping systems exclude such major costs as property acquisition and capital construction when computing "current expenditures."
UCLA business professor Bill Ouchi has calculated that, in New York City in 2001-02, debt service, school construction, and renovation added $2,298 per pupil to the $11,994 in reported current expenditure--meaning that the district actually spent upwards of $14,000 per student. In Los Angeles, the true per-pupil cost in 2001-02 was $13,074, compared to the $6,740 reported by the district.
A reasonable estimate is that widely reported per-pupil spending figures represent only 70-80 percent of what the United States spends on education. Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby has estimated that in 2000 we actually spent more than $9,200 per pupil, compared to the widely reported "official" figure of $7,392.
From 1995-96 to 2003-04, U.S. public education spending grew by more than 53 percent, from $287 billion to more than $440 billion. In California, which for three years has wrestled with massive budget shortfalls, personnel costs outstripped revenue growth in thirteen of the state's twenty largest school districts between 1996-97 and 2001-02. Sacramento had enrollment growth of 4 percent, revenue growth of 33 percent, and yet increased personnel costs by 41 percent--the result of more employees (many of them non-teachers), more generous salaries, and more opulent benefits. In short, public school personnel costs are out of control. They are even outpacing the constant growth in school revenues. This helps to explain why so many school system officials feel strapped amidst what the rest of the world would regard as ample, rising budgets.
The steady growth of spending in the past decade, as in previous decades, has allowed schools to avoid cutting fat even as other organizations have slimmed down. In 1949-50, schools employed one non-teacher for every 2.36 teachers. By 1998-99, there was one non-teacher for every 1.09 teachers. In Washington, D.C., the school system employs eleven thousand people (for sixty-five thousand students), less than half of whom are teachers. Meanwhile, school systems resist proposals for outsourcing support functions, shuttering unneeded school buildings, terminating ineffective programs, or installing technology-assisted methods of instruction and assessment that reduce the demand for personnel.
Status Quo School Spending
Dismissing concerns that money is being spent thoughtlessly, educators complain that, until they get even more money, they cannot reasonably be held responsible for helping all students to succeed. Ken Baker, principal at the Wyoming High School in Cincinnati, complained during 2003: "We're supposed to drive all the kids toward success, and we have to do it with one hand behind our backs. The fact is that there are going to be students left behind." (In 2001-02, the Cincinnati school district spent $10,328 per attending pupil.)
Such comments are not the exception; rather, the mindset they represent is pervasive. When asked by Public Agenda about the most pressing issue facing their districts, 27 percent of superintendents agree that "lack of funding is such a critical problem that only minimal progress can be made" in the school systems for which they are responsible.
It is possible that, even if we spent every penny wisely, creating the schools we desire would end up costing more than we are currently spending. However, until we start wringing out inefficiencies and finding ways to use today's dollars more effectively, there is no way to know. Until we start rethinking how we use education dollars, boosting expenditures is little more than a costly recipe for avoiding hard decisions.
Tough-minded reformers must unapologetically argue that we ought not boost spending on schools until we see proof that money is being spent in a more disciplined fashion. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has permitted the conversation to be framed so that it finds itself proclaiming support for heightened school spending as the way to prove its bona fides on the issue. While the administration's stance is understandable given election year political pressures, this line of argument weakens efforts to promote radical change and leaves would-be reformers crouched in a defensive posture.
Buying off the status quo is no way to focus the education debate on accountability, choice, flexibility, or results. Rather than brag that they, too, can spend like drunken sailors, reformers should instead demand that educators aggressively pursue efficiencies. The truth is that our schools can do a lot better for the money we currently spend. This fall, elected officials should remember that--and run on it.
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