Editor: I have been a member of the Petaluma School District’s Superintendent’s Lay Advisory Council for the past 10 years. On Feb. 2, we were addressed by Deputy Superintendent Steve Bolman about the state of the upcoming city school budget, along with projections for the next few years.
I would have to say that never in my 15 years as a parent who has kids in public schools have I been as distraught by these budget figures as I am now.
We all know that the state of the economy is not good, and we all know that the state of California’s economy is worse than most states. However, I’m not sure that we as parents have fully grasped the real impact of this on our kids and what we spend for education.
California, that place that continues to trumpet education as our best investment, is now the 49th state in the nation in terms of school spending. That means that we spend less than 48 out of 50 other states on our children’s primary and secondary education. Why are we so far behind the rest of the nation, when we are told that without an educated population, we can’t compete for businesses, neither within our own country nor within the global economy? How many times have you heard politicians stand up and say that our children are our greatest resource? Well, no one is backing that statement up in Sacramento. What happened to support for education in our state capital?