Class size reduction: California drops the ball
Former Cal State Superintendent of Public Instruction
I am heartsick that some California school districts are backing away from class size reduction, a reform that is being whittled away in this terrible budget climate. I believe today as I did when I was elected in 1994, that the budget of a state is like the budget of a family: it is a statement of values. I believe that class size reduction is even more important today than it was in the mid-1990's when we implemented it. The decision to undermine class size reduction, to lower the number of days in the school year, to lay off teachers, counselors, nurses, crossing guards, to close schools, to reduce preschool, to reduce honors classes and even to raise fees at our colleges and universities is a shame and a disgrace. It is being done in a state that was suckered into recklessly passing a high-speed rail so the rich could ride in style while our poor children are being starved educationally. I will come back to this, but first let me say a few words about how we got here.
The state of California is like the comic who says, "I cannot be out of money, I still have checks in my checkbook." Our state leadership keeps putting general obligation bonds on the ballot to do interesting things, like high speed rail and a new water system, but it fails to tell the public that by doing this with general obligation bonds instead of revenue bonds, where the users bear the cost, it will result in huge costs to K-12 and to higher education. Half of the cost of the high-speed rail, an initiative that passed the day before the governor who supported it declared a fiscal emergency, comes out of education.
Class size reduction is being dismantled because the cuts to education stem from this lunacy of spending money we don’t have. Mind you, the governor does not ask if you want prisons, he shoves those down our throats without putting them on the ballot, apparently because he values them over roads and water and certainly schools. But even the roads and water should be "pay-as-you-go" and not funded from a pie that already shamefully shortchanges children.
I do not really blame those districts that are raising class size. I know they are faced with a Hobson's choice, but I do fault a state leadership that keeps larding up California with more and more unfunded, costly, thoughtless expenditures. For example, the governor and the legislature will ask you to vote on a water bond that is a general obligation (G.O.) bond.
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