California’s Bad Math Hurts Students of Color
By Paul Tran
And on the hundredth day, the California legislature borrowed from Peter (education) to pay Paul (pass a budget). In the tardiest budget in state history, the public schools will be cut $3.1 billion with $1.9 billion to be deferred and repaid in 2011-2012. (More on that later).
What does a $3.1 billion cut look like? For our student leaders at California for Justice, it looks like a computer lab where only eight of thirty computers work. Or a set of class books that students cannot bring home to do homework. Or a counselor you’re lucky to see once a year.
More so, what does it feel like? “Like no one cares what happens to us,” says Jessica Solano Salazar, a student in the Oakland Unified School District. “I want to go to college and get a good job, but how am I supposed to get there when I don’t have any guidance and support?”
Third World-style Fiscal Austerity is End Game of California’s 2010 Budget Deal
By Willie Pelote
AFSCME
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to slash an additional $1 billion from social programs like child care and CalWORKS after a record-long budget stalemate of 100 days is another example of the fiscal austerity measures that are turning California into a Third World country.
In a statement explaining his recent line-item vetoes, Schwarzenegger said that he was trying to “build a prudent reserve” or rainy day fund.
The purpose of a rainy day fund is to provide cash in lean times or in an emergency.
With unemployment at 12% in California and record rates of poverty nationally, it would seem obvious that now is the time to tap that rainy day fund.
Instead, what Schwarzenegger has done is to siphon off money from the programs and institutions designed to protect us in the worst of times in order to save money for that rainy day fund.