The Public Needs to Educate Itself About Public Financing of Education –
There is a simple reason for that, California’s education code is not a simple uniform document, but rather layers and layers of laws and financing strung together over the years. You have state and federal monies coming in, you have mandated spending in some areas such as special education, you have categorical funds that can only be spent on certain things.
Nevertheless, it struck me that I made a comment on Thursday that school financing is a complicated area that, frankly, lay people should not try to argue about unless they are well-versed.
By that I meant that people really need to get into the books and understand how the money is spent, the accounting procedures, the state laws that mandate that spending, and the oversight that exists.
Nevertheless, a reader made an interesting comment that I should have been responded to with more detail and thought, “Couldn’t the same be said about the City of Davis and their public union contracts and the city budget? Should we all just sit back and let them do as they please because we’re not “well-versed”? Just because we don’t sit on a board or are directly involved in the financing departments we still can argue our points because it’s not hard to see that their spending is unsustainable.”
About the last point, obviously one does not need to sit on the board or be directly involved to argue any point. And we can argue whether the spending is or is not unsustainable. I would argue that the district is not nearly in the top portion of per pupil spending in the state or the nation, and therefore I question its unsustainability.
I would argue that what we are seeing now is the outgrowth of a deep recession that has forced the state to cut back funding and the residents are being asked if they want to use local monies for two years to bridge some of that gap.
As I look at the spending in the district, I do not believe we can reduce the amount we spend without impacting the quality of the education that we produce. However, depending on how the new world is going to look, we may have to change how we get that money rather than how much money we spend.
But I digress. The larger point is actually the first one, “Couldn’t the same be said about the City of Davis and their public union contracts and the city budget?”
My initial answer, which I still think is valid, is that school financing is a good deal, and by good deal I mean orders of magnitude, more complicated than those of the City of Davis and the contract and city budget. There is not the same degree of overlapping jurisdictions and laws mandating spending.
But in retrospect, that was not as good an answer as it should have been. The fact is, I have spent hours sitting in the office of now-Interim City Manager Paul Navazio, going over the city budget, trying to understand it better, going over pensions and unfunded liabilities. I have read dozens of articles on CalPERS and the public pension system.
In short, while it is less complex, I think in order to really understand the numbers, you have to invest time into studying them. You cannot be a credible critic without putting forth the time. That’s why Ed Mendel is so effective with his Calpensions site, as he knows the material as well as anyone.
So, to change my answer, school financing is more complex than city financing and the city budget, but you still have to know the substance pretty well to make the arguments that we need reform.
The final question is should “we all just sit back and let them do as they please” because we are not well-versed? The answer to that is an unequivocal no. In fact, it is just the opposite. We do not throw up our hands and concede what we do not know. We learn, we study, and then we have the tools to hold those in power accountable.
I started learning about the budget much more deeply as I began this site back in 2006, but it was not until 2008 when I helped my wife run for council that I really got a sense for what was going on. And while I have been a critic of the city, I have also been a student, spending hundreds of hours learning about city financing and trying to make stronger points about why we needed to change the way we did business.
My study began with the school district back in 2008, as well, as I was researching the former Budget Office and the public scandal of Tahir Ahad, and I started to study up on the school’s financing.
In both cases, we are in trouble but for very different reasons. The city is in trouble because it over-extended itself on contracts and compensation during good times. While the city did not create the economic downturn, it should have been obvious (and it was to some of us) in June of 2008, and before, that the city was a house of cards and all it took was the collapse of the financial markets and the real estate markets to hurtle us over the edge.
The school district was in a similar situation, actually, in early 2008, facing a partially self-inflicted mess. But it was able to extricate itself from that problem early on by cutting administration and other spending. So, when the state budget collapsed later that year, it had been on much better footing to survive. It made the kinds of changes in early 2008 that the city has never done.
Unfortunately, the state has decreased funding by $10 million over the last three years, and the district has had to cut back, but also try to preserve core programs, teachers and funding locally.
We will have a look at how much that funding has effected the school district. But for the most part, any additional funding cuts will come from personnel – teachers and support staff.
What Measure A is about is fundamentally what direction the community wants the district to go. It can cut teachers to bridge the $6 million gap or it can mitigate a lot of those cuts. That will be up to the voters.
What is clear to me is how much the public really needs to understand about school funding in order to make a truly informed decision. Most will be making their decision on a much lower level.
It is a simple calculation, embodied by a letter to the Davis Enterprise. On the one hand we have our duty to our next generation and investing in our schools and our future. On the other hand, “People are hurting and it’s critical to remember that high mortgages, property taxes, utility bills and special parcel taxes and measures we already pay do not decrease when jobs are lost or times are tough. Of course, we all want Davis schools to thrive but sometimes enough has to be enough.”
By Tuesday people need to decide which is more important to them. $200 spread out throughout the year, or our schools. It is that simple because the complexities of school finance make it difficult for anyone to answer my question that I have posed over and over again: what to cut? There is a reason the only answer I got was a joke answer: cut teachers.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
California Law may be found @ http://leginfo.public.ca.gov/calaw.html (Ca. Codes). Select the “Education Code”, then “Search” to get the table of contents. Note: It runs to Section [i]101,060[/i], and is written entirely in bureaucratese. Good luck.
Out last night all night, I awoke this morning with a new No on Measure A message left on my land-line voice mail. It was similar to the previous one, but it was voiced by a professional sounding woman. For that difference, it struck me as more effective propaganda.
[i]”I would argue that what we are seeing now is the outgrowth of a deep recession that has forced the state to cut back funding …”[/i]
No doubt this is true. But there is a context behind why the state’s budget is today in such dire straits, as opposed to merely be in bad shape: It is because the Democratic Party, led by the California Teachers Association, put in place policies (beginning in the late 1980s) which forced higher spending in good times, taking away the chance of saving up more for a rainy day by smoothing the spending curve. The result of that foot-on-the-gas-peddle policy has been a disaster each time the economy has gone south. It has been especially bad in this severe recession.
In 2005, Gov. Schwarzenegger put on the ballot an answer to change our policy, to make it so the increases in spending would not create future problems as bad as we are now facing. But the CTA–which, everyone should know, is conglomeration of the Davis Teachers Association and all other local teachers unions, telling the Democrats in the Legislature when and how high to jump–went to war against Prop 76. They spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat it. They threatened all elected Democrats with defeat if any of them came out in favor of Prop 76. (One of the firs politicians to speak positively about 76 was Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, who then reversed himself 180 degrees on it shortly after he had spoken in favor of it. He got the CTA’s message.) With all of the money and advertising on the No side, the proposition failed.
Here is what it would have done ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_76_(2005)[/url]), according to the AG’s summary:
[i]”Limits state spending to prior year’s level plus three previous years’ average revenue growth; Changes state minimum school funding requirements (Proposition 98); eliminates repayment requirement when minimum funding suspended; Excludes appropriations above the minimum from schools’ funding base; Directs excess General Fund revenues, currently directed to schools/tax relief, to budget reserve, specified construction, debt repayment; Permits Governor, under specified circumstances, to reduce appropriations of Governor’s choosing, including employee compensation/state contracts; Continues prior year appropriations if state budget delayed; Prohibits state special funds borrowing; Requires payment of local government mandates.”[/i]
We are going to have another recession some years down the road after we recover from today’s bad economy. And when that hits, unless we smooth our spending cycle, we will again face a crisis like we are now in.
Everyone should be blaming the CTA and the Democrats who fought against Prop 76 in 2005 for the severity of our state’s fiscal problems. Partisan Democrats–that is, most of Davis–cannot face this fact. They will blame George Bush, they will protest the Iraq War after it ended for our soldiers, they will blame the handful of Republicans in the Legislature, they will blame anyone but the teachers unions and themselves. But those are the parties who have run the Legislature for decades. That is where the reform needs to begin.
Very thoughtful and incisive article. I would add the following note – voters are asked to weigh in on all sorts of issues they are not “well versed” in. Voters may not have the time or inclination to delve into all the niceties of finances, or even have the ability to understand them even if they tried to sort it all out. Furthermore, the powers that be, whether it is the schools or a gov’t entity have a nasty habit of burying uncomfortable truths behind mounds of misleading data, biased wordsmithing, and the like. So what’s the average voter to do? Where do they turn for “the truth”?
In many cases there is no real “truth” out there to be had. Much of it has to do with the voters own set of values, biases, and personal financial situation. Everyone has to vote their conscience. Oftentimes I vote at a gut level, bc I am just not sure on any higher plane of true knowledge. And frankly, there was actually a single time when I flipped a coin, bc I was so completely undecided but I have such an ingrained sense of duty that I should vote. LOL at myself…
My biggest complaint is the voter has nowhere really to turn for unbiased information. I flat out do not believe anything I read or hear anymore. There is so much unethical gaming of the system, as we just witnessed most recently by the proponents of Measure A. Gaming the system has become the norm, not the exception. What a shame. What I think gets lost in all of this nonsense of political maneuvering is that honesty would be a refreshing change to voters – and garner much more support for a cause than the political shenanigan…
Elaine
Although I suspect that your degree of distrust surpasses mine, I think you have nailed it that this is about values, not about right and wrong.
I would take it a bit further and state that anyone who is dismissive of the legitimate concerns of the other side is promoting and extending the problem rather than seeking solutions.
Rifkin
While I am in agreement with you about the possible benefits of Prop 76 , I think the blame cannot be passed out quite so unilaterally.
Let’s not forget that as a David has pointed out previously, much of California’s educational funding difficulties can be dated back to Prop 13 which while well intended in terms of protecting elders homes, had devastating if unintended consequences for public education.
Plenty of blame all the way around since we don’t seem willing to drop the blame game.
To Rich Rifkin: Altho I agree w medwoman that there is plenty of blame to go around, I agree w you that the Democrats just adamantly refuse to take any responsibility in their own culpability here – Gov. Brown being one of them… sigh…
I partly agree with Rifkin, but I think he needs to drill down another level. First, the CTA does what all unions do;it gets the best deal it can for its members. To do less would be dereliction of duty. Second, the Democrats obey the CTA, one, because they really do support education, second, the CTA gives Democrats lots of money which they use to get elected or reelected. (The Republicans do the same for the gun lobby and religious organizations. It’s call “politics.”) Finally, we, the People (excluding, of course, the membership of this blog) tend to elect he who runs the most ads. Again, as the great philosopher Pogo stated, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Observer
A fair representation of our current political situation in my opinion.
And a question for Elaine. While I agree that most Democrats do not admit to their share of blame, please give me an example of Republicans being any more forthcoming about theirs.
[i]”Let’s not forget that as a David has pointed out previously, much of California’s educational funding difficulties can be dated back to Prop 13 which while well intended in terms of protecting elders homes, had devastating if unintended consequences for public education.”[/i]
I won’t bother to argue with you here–with any vigor–the question of whether education funding in California has been “devastated” by Prop 13 since 1978*. However, that is ultimately a side issue to what I am talking about. Our state spending system (under Prop 98 and some other problematic laws) FORCES up spending when times are good. These laws prohibit a more modest growth of education spending during a strong economy, when tax money is flowing in.
We could have, and should have, gotten rid of that back in 2005. If we had done so–and I believe we would have but for the tens of millions of dollars the teachers unions spent to defeat Prop 76–we would not be in such bad shape today. I place the blame for this bad policy largely on the CTA, the local unions like the DTA, and the corrupted (or stupid) Democratic politicians who take teacher money and bow to their every command. (It’s also, clearly, the fault of the voters in our state.)
*You should know that 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years and 30 years after Prop 13, California was steadily among the upper half of all U.S. states ([url]http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/08f33pub.pdf[/url]) in per pupil spending on education. It is only in the most recent years, with our terrible economy compared with most of the country, that we have really fallen down the list of states. Moreover, there never has been much of a correlation on state by state basis to show that more spending per pupil results in better test scores or better any other measure of educational outcome. The best indicator is probably demographics ([url]http://star.cde.ca.gov/summaryreports2010.asp[/url]) (both race/ethnicity and socio-economic status). California used to be much whiter/less diverse than it is today, and a much larger percentage of children 30 years ago and more were born to married mothers in intact families. The massive influx of Latinos (with a very high birth rate) and the large increase in children raised without fathers are probably the biggest factors as to why our per pupil test score results have not faired as well here as they have in some other states with demographics more similar to what California had 30 years ago.
“It is that simple because the complexities of school finance make it difficult for anyone to answer my question that I have posed over and over again: what to cut?”
actually the district was provided a way out: the charter school – and based on what they did to valley oak, they declined on that one. but since times are so tough for the school and they just do not know where to cut, you think they will agree to close schools and re-open them up as independent charters, now? ten bucks says they do not agree.
Rifkin
I agree with you that demographics is a large part of the challenge faced by California. I think that makes adequate funding even more important. At a time when we should have been increasing spending especially on language instruction, lowering class sizes for more individualized instruction we were decreasing our per student expenditures. While I agree the “throwing more money ” at a problem is frequently not the best solution, I think that the situation that you have described certainly warranted greater, not less spending on education.
I agree with you that demographics is a large part of the challenge faced by California. I think that makes [s]adequate funding even more important[/s] fixing our broken culture even more important.
Also agreed, but I suspect we would not always agree on what is broken and the “fix”. To me that is part of what is so special about our culture. We value the right to disagree.
“actually the district was provided a way out: the charter school”
The school district still pays for the charter school, they just don’t have operational control over it.
David
Can you explain more about how that works.
I dug up a couple of old articles from Valley Oak Charter Process, I think that explains somewhat how it works.
Charter 1 ([url]http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=743:school-board-votes-4-1-to-rebuff-superintendents-recommendation-on-charter-school&catid=68:budgettaxes&Itemid=119[/url])
Charter 2 ([url]http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=664:valley-oak-petition-faces-tough-questions-from-school-board&catid=68:budgettaxes&Itemid=119[/url])
Charter 3 ([url]http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=600:valley-oak-charter-proposal-moves-forward&catid=68:budgettaxes&Itemid=119[/url])
medwoman: “And a question for Elaine. While I agree that most Democrats do not admit to their share of blame, please give me an example of Republicans being any more forthcoming about theirs.”
Both sides of the aisle are just as guilty for not taking responsibility. And then some politicians are so stupid they apologize when they shouldn’t – like Bush apologizing for landing on the aircraft carrier and declaring victory. It was great “political theater” and very wise psychological initimidation of the enemy. No matter if it was ill advised as some would have us think, it is not wise under the circumstances to show weakness to the enemy. I am amazed at how stupid and unguarded our politians are in what they say. I am not a believer in being an “apologist nation”. That sort of strategy has not worked well for our country… President Reagan understood this – and was able to bring down the Berlin Wall and the USSR… Psy-ops is a powerful thing…
“The school district still pays for the charter school, they just don’t have operational control over it.”
yes, I remember. I remember they had closed valley oak to save money, then reopened it as a charter with funds they said they did not have.
Musser: “yes, I remember. I remember they had closed valley oak to save money, then reopened it as a charter with funds they said they did not have.”
Excellent point…
Musser: [i]yes, I remember. I remember they had closed valley oak to save money, then reopened it as a charter with funds they said they did not have.[/i]
Da Vinci moved there. Da Vinci was in operation before Valley Oak closed. They didn’t open a new school after Valley Oak closed.
Before Valley Oak closed, there were 9 K-6 schools, 3 JH campuses, DHS, Da Vinci, King High, and DSIS.
After Valley Oak closed, there were 8 K-6 schools, 3 JH campuses, DHS, Da Vinci, King High, and DSIS.
Please explain your statement about opening a school with funds they didn’t have.