SACRAMENTO – Saying funding for public education is "bottoming out," Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said Monday he will focus on increasing state money for schools and will campaign to reduce the threshold necessary to pass local parcel taxes. In his State of Education speech to education advocates, O'Connell criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's spending plan, saying it was wrong to frame the budget woes as a choice between cutting health care for the elderly or public education. "It is a choice between tax relief for the wealthiest Californians – those who have benefited most from federal tax policies –...
