Robin Hoodwinked by Governor Brown

The Los Angeles Times is referring to California Governor Jerry Brown as a “Robin Hood” for his plan to redistribute resources from “wealthy” suburban school districts to their poorer urban cousins. Brown has characterized himself as a civil rights hero since the poor urban districts serve predominantly low income communities of color, suggesting that inequitable school funding is the primary cause of the achievement gap.

Both the Times and Brown are delusional. Robin Hood robbed rich individuals and gave the spoils directly to poor people so they could feed, clothe and house themselves. Brown’s plan does nothing to reduce poverty and gives no money or resources directly to any poor students or their families.

This is no trivial criticism, as poverty is the number one cause of poor academic achievement. Poor children are far more likely than others to be born with low birth weight or suffer malnutrition or lead poisoning (10% of poor children have dangerous levels of lead in their blood according to the CDC), any of which can impair cognitive development or lead to learning disabilities. They suffer higher levels of stress, which causes the overproduction of the stress hormone cortisol, which can impair memory and learning. They are absent far more often (as much as 40% more, according to Richard Rothstein), dramatically decreasing their chances of graduating on time (see here). They have less access to enriching extracurricular activities like summer travel, camp and museum visits, which can cause the achievement gap to increase each year. Lower income families tend to read less to their babies and toddlers and expose them to fewer complex words and phrases, with the result that affluent children have vocabularies that are tens of thousands of words larger than their lower income peers even before they have entered kindergarten (see here and here).

As long as poverty persists, increasing resources to lower income schools will have very limited effect on student achievement. It certainly cannot remove the stress and anxiety that result from living a life of material scarcity and uncertainty and the ongoing sense of powerlessness that accompanies it.

The Times does correctly note that poor districts would not necessarily benefit at the expense of wealthy districts under Brown’s plan. Some poor districts, like Oakland, would actually receive less per student under the governor’s plan, according to both the state education department and the governor's own budget office.

It is also misleading to refer to some districts as “wealthy.”  Certainly some districts have higher percentages of affluent students, but this does not mean they are adequately funded publicly. There probably is no district in the state that receives sufficient funding entirely through property taxes and state and federal revenues. The wealthiest districts receive more money than the poorer districts, but not enough to keep class sizes under 35; hire sufficient nurses, librarians, counselors and teachers; purchase sufficient lab equipment and classroom supplies; or pay teachers’ salaries comparable to those in the private sector. Many of these schools are able to raise funds from parents to supplement what they receive from the state and local taxes, but there are also many lower income schools in so-called wealthy districts that do not have this capability.

Transferring resources from the “wealthy” districts will not come close to restoring what the poorer districts have lost as a result of the $20 billion the state has slashed from education funding over the past few years. Even if it did, that would only bring these schools back to a level that was grossly inadequate (California education spending was among the lowest in the nation even before the recession). “Wealthy” schools can always ramp up their fundraising from wealthy families, but they will continue to have overcrowded classrooms and underpaid teachers.

More significantly, Brown’s plan gives the illusion that he is doing something equitable and rational to mitigate the state’s education problems, when in reality he is simply holding education funding steady at the 46^th lowest level in the nation . This, in turn, allows the state to maintain historically low tax rates for the wealthy and their businesses and to continue defunding social programs that serve the poor, including transitional kindergarten.

California, Poorest/Richest State in the Nation

California currently has more than 600,000 millionaires and 85 billionaires in the Forbes 400 list, far more than any other state in the nation. At the same time, California is now the poorest state in the nation, with the highest percentage of residents living at or below the poverty level. According to the Census Bureau, 23.5% (8.7 million Californians) are living in poverty. Florida is number 2 at 19.5%.

These numbers reflect a revision in how the Census Bureau measures poverty. In the past, it looked solely at income versus food costs. Under this system, the poverty rate would be only 16%. Under the new system, it now considers income plus assistance programs (e.g., food stamps, welfare) versus tax rate, childcare, housing and medical costs, in addition to food expenses, providing a much more realistic (though still incomplete) picture of families’ financial challenges.

Nearly 50% of California’s children live in or “perilously close” to poverty according to the newer metric, probably the single biggest reason for the state’s low test scores. True poverty rates are further obscured by the arbitrary and absurdly low federal threshold of $23,021 for a family of four. Considering that average monthly rents are $1552 in Los Angeles, $1431 in San Diego, $1938 in San Jose and $2106 in San Francisco, families must spend between $17,172 and $25,272 per year just to place a roof over their heads.

It is not just that better methods are providing a more accurate measure of poverty. The recession has also contributed to a dramatic increase in poverty. Between 2008 and 2011, for example, poverty rose 12% in Los Angeles County to 24.3%, and rose even more in some of the state’s rural counties. Conditions have grown so bad that California has seen negative migration patterns for the past eight years, according to the WSWS. A combination of low unemployment rates in Mexico (roughly half of California’s in recent years) and increased militarization of the border and deportations (a record 400,000 in 2012) has significantly reduced migration from Mexico. This has led to labor shortages in the state’s agriculture sector, with some farmers opting to let unpicked produce rot rather than increasing wages to attract domestic employees, since the former increases sales prices and profits, while the latter only cuts into profits.

While the state’s economy “recovers,” job growth has been primarily in low-wage service jobs. Thus many formerly unemployed are now earning far less than they did prior to the recession, contributing to the ranks of the working poor. Cuts to social programs has placed further downward pressure on living standards and contributed to the growing number of poor Californians under the new measurement system.

Education Cuts for California Despite Prop 30 Victory

Image from Flickr, by Double-M

The California Teachers Association (CTA) lobbied heavily for passage of Proposition 30, mobilizing thousands of teachers to phone bank and canvas neighborhoods. Together with other state unions, they spent $50 million to get the initiative passed. They claimed it would save public education and restore funding to the schools. However, with more than $18 billion slashed from K-12 education since the recession began, the $6.6 billion in projected revenues from Prop 30 won’t even come close to restoring public education funding to pre-recession levels, especially considering the state budget deficit is now estimated at more than $15 billion. It will do nothing to bring back the 80,000 teaching jobs lost since the recession began nor reopen any schools that were shut down, the WSWS reports.

What Proposition 30 will do is prevent $6 billion in trigger cuts that had been built into the last state budget as a way to blackmail California voters into approving the tax hikes. Rather than restoring public education, Prop 30 simply maintains the status quo of an $18 billion hole in the state’s K-12 funding and one of the very lowest per pupil funding rates in the nation. While it does raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year, the increase is only a nominal 1-3% increase on their payroll taxes (i.e., the taxes withheld from their salaries) and it leaves the tax rate on their capital gains (which makes up the majority of their income) unaffected. At the same time, Prop 30 raises the state sales tax from 9.25% to 9.75%—a regressive tax increase that disproportionately affects poor and working class people.

While the California State University (CSU), University of California (UC) and state community college systems are all planning to increase course offerings and some, like CSU, are planning modest tuition refunds ($249 per semester, according to the Los Angeles Times), they are also planning other fee increases and service cuts. CSU, for example, is still planning to implement fee increases for students taking more classes than they need to graduate, and the UC system is planning on increasing fees for graduate and professional programs by 1.5% to 35%. UC, which threatened 20% tuition hikes if Prop 30 failed (and promised no new fees this year if it passed), is leaving open the possibility of raising undergraduate tuition again next year.

In response to the proposed cuts and the unwillingness of UC to go beyond a tuition freeze and actually lower tuition, UC students have been protesting at UC campuses and at meetings of the university’s regents. Students staged a sleep-out in Berkeley on Wednesday night. Hundreds of students were joined by faculty and unionized workers on Thursday to protest budget cuts that have resulted in slashed course offerings, layoffs and large tuition hikes. They blocked roads leading to the meetings and then disrupted the meeting so effectively that the regents had to call a temporary recess.

Students do not simply want a reduction in tuition—many want a completely subsidized higher education system. Last Friday, KPFA’s “Up Front” news program broadcast protesters chanting, “No cuts! No fees! Education must be free!” Until recently, California did subsidize both the UC and CSU systems to the point that neither charged tuition and both charged fees that were relatively affordable for middle income families. Back in the early- to mid-1980s, for example, it only cost $1,000-1,200 per year to attend UC. By 1995, it was over $4,000. By 2010, it has risen to more than $11,000. Last year, tuition at UC was $13,218. (Click here for more on the history of UC tuition).

With the passage of Prop 30, Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) is planning on restoring the five school days that had been cut from the school year the Los Angeles Times reports, as well as restoring teacher pay for the 10 days which they had lost to furloughs. However, Superintendent Deasy warned of a new round of cuts (implying the furloughs and pay cuts could return) if Congress and President Obama cannot resolve the “fiscal cliff” crisis, as this would leave LAUSD with a new $60 million budget shortfall.

Of course, if this happens, many districts in the state could suddenly find themselves with large deficits, too. This is because Prop 30 is only a bandage over a gaping wound. Education at all levels, from pre-K to graduate school, has been eviscerated over the past decade and Prop 30 does nothing to restore the cuts. Prop 30 does little to close California’s current budget deficit and it does nothing to stabilize California’s revenue stream or prevent future deficits and education cuts.

There is a glimmer of hope for education funding in the future. One of the reasons California has had so much difficulty in balancing its budget for the past decade is that voters approved a law requiring a two-thirds supermajority in the legislature before any new tax increases can be approved. The most recent election, however, gave the Democrats just such a supermajority in both houses of the state legislature for the first time in nearly 80 years. This will not only allow lawmakers to pass tax increases, but it also gives them the power to override the Governor’s veto.

Whether or not they will use their power in this way remains to be seen, but seems unlikely considering that every one of them would be negatively affected by a serious tax increase on the wealthy. This is not only because they are all wealthy themselves, but because they would be biting the corporate hand that feeds them, keeps them in office, and provides them jobs when they get termed out.

California’s New Open Textbook Law

California Governor Jerry Brown has recently signed two new bills (SB 1052 and SB 1053) that pave the way for free, open license digital textbooks for the 50 most popular lower-division college courses offered in California. The legislation, introduced by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, passed the state Senate and Assembly in August.

Textbooks developed under the new will be made available under the Creative Commons Attribution license. This will allow anyone to use or distribute the content free of charge, so long as the authors are appropriately credited. It will also allow teachers to modify the textbooks to best serve their students.

What remains to be determined is who will write these textbooks and whether their quality will be any good. If they turn out to be garbage, or significantly worse than alternatives, students may still find they have to purchase hundreds of dollars’ worth of books each semester. Furthermore, if free digital textbooks are only made available for the 50 most popular lower-division courses, this would leave open the continued gouging of upper division and graduate students and anyone taking any of the thousands of less popular lower-division courses. 

California’s College Crisis: Nearly Half a Million on Waitlist

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

I hope I will be forgiven for exploiting the word “crisis” after repeatedly criticizing Ed Deformers, politicians and the wealthy for regularly misusing the term. Yet the situation in California’s community colleges seems to warrant such language. After all, the state’s community college system has lost $809 million over the last three years, resulting in mass layoffs, increased fees, the gutting of course offerings (down 24% from the 2008-9 school year), and large increases in class sizes. Perhaps the most dramatic effect of these cuts is the wait list of 472,349 students (according to the California Community Chancellor’s Office) who are trying to get into the system.

The problem could get dramatically worse in November, if voters reject Proposition 30, a tax increase intended to raise funds for public education. If that bill fails, Good Education reports, the community college system will be forced to make another $228 million cut in January, 2013.

Considering that the community colleges serve low income students of color, workers trying to gain new job skills, and those who cannot afford the four-year universities, the rising costs and declining openings at community colleges will likely result in deferred or abandoned college educations for many students and, consequently, reduced earning power.

Anti-Teacher Bill Passes California State Senate

SB 1530 was passed in the California State Senate this week. The bill eliminates timelines for notifying teachers of impending disciplinary action and allows districts to send out dismissal notices during the summer, when many teachers are on vacation and not even in town to receive and act upon the notice.

The bill would also allow districts to use old and unrelated information from a teacher’s past to prosecute current misconduct cases, which is like using a past speeding ticket as evidence that someone later ran a stop sign. The legislation is that it will eliminate teachers from the Committee on Professional Competence. 

More Cuts for Cali, Even With Tax Increase

Gov. Brown Squeezing Blood From a Turnip

In January, Gov. Jerry Brown told Californians that if they didn’t pass his tax increase initiative in November, he would have no choice but to slash over $5 billion from public education. Since then, tax revenue has been much lower ($3.5 billion) than anticipated, prompting Brown to threaten much deeper cuts, even if his tax initiative passes.

The tax initiative would impose a regressive sales tax on all Californians, including the poor, in addition to a short-term tax increase on incomes of $250,000 or more. It is projected to generate $9 billion, which would have barely maintained the status quo before the latest projections, and hardly made a dent in the $20 billion cut from public education over the past 3 years.


The new round of cuts will likely target health and welfare programs. However, Brown is also expected to squeeze unions. According to the Los Angeles Times, he has already been meeting with Yvonne Walker, president of SEIU local 1000, and he has been actively lobbying for cuts to public sector pensions. But the details of his proposed cuts have not been released, nor has the true size of the deficit, which some believe may be as high as $15 billion. However, one can predict some of his likely demands on the public sector unions: more furloughs, cuts to health care and pensions, layoffs and decreases in certain public services.

Union Busting in “Pro-Labor” California

In the wake of several recent sexual abuse allegations against Los Angeles school teachers and the mass public hysteria that followed, the California Legislature will consider three new laws that significantly reduce union protections for teachers. These union busting bills (SB 1530, AB 2028 and SB 1059) were set for hearing in the California legislature on April 18, 2012. According to the CTA website, SB 1059 would virtually eliminate Due Process rights for teachers.

  

SB 1530, sponsored by Sen. Alex Padilla, (Dem., Los Angeles), would give school boards the final decision over firing teachers facing  sexual, drug, and other serious misconduct charges, according to the Topics in Education (Toped) website. The three-person appeals board currently in place would be replaced by an administrative judge whose opinions would only be advisory. This would turn school boards into partisan judge and juries, thus making it much harder for teachers to defend themselves against frivolous or vindictive accusations. The bill would also allow districts to suspend teachers for virtually any “infraction” they deem unprofessional, thus, making it even easier for school boards to get rid of teachers who are outspoken, critical of district policies or active in their unions.

SB 1530 would also eliminate the current requirement that districts issue a 45-day notice to teachers facing disciplinary action and it would allow districts to suspend teachers without pay. Thus, teachers would lose the ability to know that charges have been filed against them and to prepare a defense. This might seem unnecessary—shouldn’t a teacher be aware if she has done something wrong? Not necessarily. Teachers are disciplined fairly regularly based on unsubstantiated accusations by students, parents and administrators. A teacher may be completely unaware that such accusations have been made and should have the right to defend herself and clear her name, something that would become difficult or impossible under SB1530.

SB 1059, sponsored by Bob Huff (Rep., Diamond Bar), would also quicken the firing process and give school boards the final say over firing teachers for misconduct and for unsatisfactory performance, Toped reports. It would also remove the 4-year statute of limitations on misconduct investigations in a teacher’s file.

CTA’s response to the Padilla bill can be seen here: sb1530Page1 sb1530Page2.

Making Schools Safer for Children?
Aside from the fact that these laws will make it easier to fire teachers and take away many due process rights necessary for them to defend themselves from arbitrary, vindictive and retaliatory disciplinary actions, they are redundant and unnecessary. School districts already have the right to discipline and fire teachers for infractions that harm students, jeopardize safety or otherwise undermine the educational process. What happened in Los Angeles (e.g., suspected serial molesters being allowed to stay in the classroom) was due to the laziness and incompetency of LAUSD investigators and administrators, not inadequate laws (see here, here and here).

Rather than pandering to public hysteria about a nonexistent epidemic of molesters in the classroom, lawmakers ought to consider how to make schools truly safer by focusing on safety issues that affect the majority of students. For example, California classes often have 35-40 students in them, making them unsafe for lab activities and reducing the ability of teachers to identify and address dangerous behavior or bullying. Similarly, the declining number of counselors and support personnel in California schools means that many students who are suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, grief and other emotional distresses are falling through the cracks. Aside from the tragedy that they are not getting the support services they need to feel safe and thrive at school, some of them could be also become dangers to their classmates if their conditions remain unidentified or treated.

Jerry Brown Proposes Giving Poor Districts More Money

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

California Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing changing the way schools are funded so that districts with higher proportions of low income students and English learners would receive more money than affluent schools. Under the proposal, districts in which 90% of students are either low income or English learners (such as Los Angeles and Long Beach) would receive $3,000 more per student than districts with only 20% disadvantaged students.

For more, see the following Toped articles: How Weighted Funding Would Works and Switch to Weighted Funding

Jerry Brown: No Friend of Teachers or Labor

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Led by the California Teachers Association (CTA), labor pumped millions of dollars into Jerry Brown’s war chest, helping him to defeat billionaire Meg Whitman in the race for governor of California. They were not just fighting for “anyone but Meg.” They actually believed that Brown would do great things for public education and public sector unions.

One of the first things Brown did once elected was to appoint a CTA lobbyist to the state board of education, which was really more of a favor from one 1%-er to another, than a boon to teachers or students. He also cobbled together a budget deal that promised no more cuts to K-12 education. Educators and the CTA considered this a victory and a great favor from their “pro-education” governor, despite the fact that it did nothing to restore the $21 billion that had been cut from K-12 education over the previous 3 years and even though the budget slashed more than $1.5 billion from higher education. However, even this was nothing more than a bit of political hocus pocus, predicated as it was on overly optimistic revenue projections.

Brown’s chickens are coming home to roost. The revenue projections were so far off that the state is now looking at a new $13 billion deficit. According to the Washington Post, the state is facing $2 billion in automatic cuts on the first of the year, much of that coming from K-12 and higher education. There will be another $10 billion deficit for the fiscal year starting on July 1^st and again K-12 and higher education will likely take big hits.

The California State University (CSU) system will lose $100 million, news the prompted the CSU trustees quickly vote for another 9% fee increase. They did this behind closed doors, possibly in violation of state sunshine laws, to avoid disruptions by student protestors. Community college students will be forced to pay another $10 per unit, while K-12 districts will lose $1.1 billion, or $180 per child, according to the Thoughts on Public Ed website.