How Los Angeles and San Diego Unified Started Driving State Education Policy
The moment was ripe for a novel statewide organizing approach. Coronavirus had upended schooling and many important questions, beyond even money, would have to be answered over the course of the pandemic.
Back in May, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a new draft of his budget, based on the bleak financial outlook caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. California’s rosy fiscal position had evaporated in a matter of weeks and it was time for the bad news: Schools would take the biggest hit.
Newsom said he was left with no choice but to cut $7 billion from education. It was one of the biggest single year drops in funding ever proposed. Education leaders immediately compared it to the devastating austerity of the Great Recession.
At the time, the state’s two largest school districts, Los Angeles and San Diego Unified, had been cultivating a partnership for weeks. And even though they had different purposes in mind for the new alliance, the moment of Newsom’s cuts was going to be a big moment for them.
“In the last recession, the entire education establishment rolled over,” said Richard Barrera, vice president of the San Diego Unified school board. “These big cuts were coming and everyone in Sacramento capitulated. Most districts were just waiting to be told, ‘Here are your guidelines. Here’s what you have to spend.’”
Barrera, a union organizer by trade, believed school districts should at the very least fight back against Newsom’s budget. Within days, Los Angeles and San Diego Unified wrote a letter saying they wouldn’t be able to physically reopen campuses if Newsom’s cuts went through. Other big districts signed onto the letter. School leaders pushed their local legislative delegations to CONTINUE READING: How Los Angeles and San Diego Unified Started Driving State Education Policy — Voice of San Diego
