California Democrats Starve Public Education
We are often told that the right wing is acting to destroy public education with people like Wisconsin’s Governor Republican Scott Walker and the Koch brothers being properly vilified. For example, American Federation of Teacher’s President Randi Weingarten has written that, “We need to tell Govs. Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania (now defeated), Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Rick Snyder in Michigan and others that their chronic disinvestment in higher education is a one-way ticket out of the governor’s mansion.” (AFT on Campus Fall 2014 pg. 3)
Weingarten, who recently was involved in the American Federation of Teacher’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president, is suggesting that if we have any hope for higher education, we need to place Democrats in power. The same logic would apply to protecting all forms of public education.
However, in many ways, the Republicans are providing cover so that when the Democrats enact programs that starve public education of proper funding, their actions often go unreported and unnoticed.
Democrats are constantly expressing support for education. The policies they enact often do not match their rhetoric.
Many Democrats share a huge responsibility for the degradation of public education. They have overseen cuts in public educational funding. They have also supported anti-union policies demanding more work for less pay while attacking job protection, high stakes testing, and privatization leading to more charter schools and to contracting out much work that had been done previously in-house by a public school.
A prime example of Democrats overseeing the short changing of public education is California under Governor Jerry Brown. During the time he has been in office, starting in 2011, the Democrats have dominated the state government with huge majorities in both houses of the legislature while also holding all executive offices. However, funding for education in real dollar amounts has been lacking even as revenue has increased and despite a reformed budget process in place during the time Brown has been governor. Now, a simple majority of each house of the state legislature is sufficient to pass a budget. Previously, a two-thirds majority had been necessary.
Here is the recent record of spending on education in California.
The above numbers are striking.
In the budget approved for fiscal year 2008-2009, when Schwarzenegger was still governor and a two-thirds majority in each house of the legislature was necessary to pass a budget, spending for K-12 was $46.2 billion and for higher education stood at $13.6 billion. Both amounts of educational spending are higher for every subsequent year until 2015-2016, even after total state funds were higher than they were in 2008-2009.
Partly in response to the recession that began in 2008, spending on education for all of the years thereafter reached the lowest point in 2011-2012 which is after Brown became governor. Total spending for California Democrats Starve Public Education:
