Dragging Out That Soap Box… Again

I really wish I didn’t have to do this… but it’s time to drag out that soap box –  again…  Something bad is about to happen to our schools. Again. Argh!!! If you live in California you need to read this and you need to give a crap. Because people, it’s only getting worse and frankly I’m getting tired of talking about it.

Can you hear my blood percolating? California is about to go through yet another fire-drill on education funding…yup, again. The stability of the state’s funding for education has been smoldering and now… it’s about to flare up into a serious brushfire. Are you ready?

I’m getting a little sick of it to tell you the truth but read on because I have a couple of ideas how we can get off this rollercoaster together.  Ok, they’re not MY ideas but I’m here to share them with you. And guess what? Celebrities are getting in on this too… Seriously!

Luke Perry and Valerie Bertinelli they’re all parents now with kids in the school system and they know the gig, and you should too. Read on.

Note from Sara: I don’t pretend to have all the facts – this is my brain trying to remember most of the facts. There are experts out there and I don’t pretend to be one of them. But I’m a parent and I raise funds for my public school and at some point I ask why are we constantly doing this? So there’s that..

DECEMBER 15th, 2011

Remember that date. That’s a trigger date. A trigger date for what? Well… for cuts and more cuts to education. Almost $1.2 BILLION in cuts to K-12 Education, scheduled for Feb. 1.

Yup, it’s happening again.

OK Let’s review… Back in March, I dragged out my soap box because the California budget was a mess, then in May I told you about a rally to get Californians stoked and motivated.

Remember these depressing facts???

Sad right? None of the above has changed, in fact our ability to address those issues has been hampered because our state’s budget is about to implode.

Want to hear a little story of where we were about a year ago and how we got into the mess we are now looking at?  Here’s the spark/cliff notes version of what happened this past year (stripped down to plain English):

January 2011 – Watch The Gap

Almost 1 year ago, there was a huge gap in California’s budget. And by huge I mean ENORMOUS: to the tune of $25 BILLION – with a ‘B’. People were freaking out (rightly so) and politicians were finger wagging. The budget looked like it would never be balanced or passed into law.

Governor Jerry Brown had promised there would be no “phony plans or snappy slogans that don’t go anywhere,” and that he would be the one to make tough decisions to get the state back on track.

The politicians were supposedly busy duking it out in Sacramento listening to all sides and trying to figure out how on earth to unravel years and years of government decisions and management that led to the current situation.

March 2011 – Pink Slip Party Time

In March, by law, the California School Districts were required to submit THEIR budgets based on the current state budget proposal (totally ass backwards but whatever), and with a giant gap of $25bn everything was looking pretty bleak. Districts planned for decreases – some as high as $1,000 per student in funding.

And on March 15th, California School Districts were forced to issue pink slip notices to teachers and other staff in order to balance their budgets.

Not a fun day.

In my district, our librarians, physical education teachers, behavioral specialists and some administrative staff were all notified. It could have been much worse, as it was in neighboring districts, but our Superintendent was able to look to his pipeline of private funds coming from parents and foundations to help mitigate the gap in his budget. Other communities would not have this luxury.

As parents and education advocates, we all started applying pressure on Sacramento, writing and demanding that California’s budget be balanced and education not take a direct hit from it’s already depleted stance.

June 30, 2011: Budget Day or Let’s Just Make Stuff Up Time

By the time June rolled around a lot of proposed cuts to social services and regional parks were on the table along with cuts to education. No one was going to come out a winner in this situation and it totally sucked.

But just how much it was going to suck was the real question and proposals flew back and forth between Republicans and Democrats all while the clock ticked towards June 15th, the day by which a budget HAD to be passed into law.  If not?  Legislators would stop receiving paychecks.

Wait… What?

There were major holdouts. It looked like 5 GOP Reps were going to block whatever came down the pike if new taxes were going to be proposed. Democrats, fearing their paychecks were going to get cut off, started pasting together a budget.  Then when Governor Brown viewed the proposed budget, he vetoed it saying the plan was full of “gimmicks” and sent everyone back to the drawing board.

The deadline passed with no balanced budget and.. their paychecks stopped.

And that got everyone’s attention.

So much so that they got pretty creative and found some extra money lying around. How much extra? Well… Are you ready for this? $4 Billion dollars in additional revenue!

Wait… what? How much???

$4,000,000,000

Where the hell do you ‘find’ FOUR BILLION dollars to save the budget? Do you just print money?

Well… kind of.

At the absolute last minute, politicians (and I’m guessing their accountants) said: “Whoops! Our projections are off! California businesses are doing MUCH better than we thought! We are going to get so much more in revenue dollars from sales and corporate taxes than we were anticipating! This will fund the budget and there will be no cuts to education! WOO HOO!”

Hunh? I thought Jerry said no gimmicks? No phony plans?  Ummm… ok…..

So we all sat back, the budget was passed and everyone went about their business and kids went off to school in September.

Somebody somewhere did ask the question, “But what if they don’t make more money??” But they were quickly taken and out back and shot.

Fast Forward to Now…

In this hasty “no gimmicks” budget plan, Legislators also made the projection that this new found revenue would continue throughout the year and therefore carry the economy.  But guess what?  Businesses haven’t been doing so well throughout the State.

In fact, by the end of October it became clear that this $4 Billion projection was off, waaaaaaay off. Like $3 Billion off. That’s a big screw up.

For K-12 education funding, this could mean $1.2 Billion in cuts to staff and programs in January 2012. Most districts will have to reach into their reserves (if they have them) to cover these automatic “trigger” cuts but then what?

Because Bake Sales Aren’t Going to Cover It

So that brings me to this… and those celebrities I promised.

What can you do? 

By now, if you are like me, you’ve probably figured out that we can’t keep treating education funding like a fire drill – something HAS SERIOUSLY GOT TO CHANGE.  We can’t expect our schools to run properly or smoothly if they don’t know or can’t rely on the funding they are supposed to get.

Also, there’s only so much that the parents and communities can personally donate and let’s face it… there’s no amount of bake sale cookies that are going to bridge this billion dollar issue of funding year after year, after year..

Get involved. Stay informed. Support funding measures.

Thankfully, there are some really smart people out there that are making it easier for us to stay informed and suggesting ways to hear about alternatives to the status quo.

Valerie Bertinelli is one of them. OK, well she’s a Mom and she lent her celebrity-One-Day-At-A-Time-voice to the current PSA for Education Our State.  Anyway, all she (and I) want you to do is:

Stay informed and give a crap.

So here’s a few ways you can do that:

1. Watch this PSA:

• Next:
1. Like Educate Our State on Facebook
2. and then ‘Like’ Lafayette For Education on Facebook and then…
3. Tell 10 of your friends to do the same.

You won’t regret it and you’ll start to hear about ways you can help get involved to bring about larger scale change and stability to this rollercoaster that we all want off of.

Support Local Measures
The next thing you can do is support local measures that will provide additional funding for your district, like parcel taxes.  During this past election, communities through out California supported 5 out of 7 parcel taxes, with the required 2/3rd’s vote (the 2 that did not pass did have +50% of the vote).  These new fund will now help support their school districts directly.

So if you see one on your ballot next spring, read up on it and throw your support behind it. Every vote will count!

Come On Out

And finally, if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly in the East Bay, consider coming to this Town Hall Meeting on December 6th put on by my friends over at Lafayette For Education.  They’ve lined up an impressive group of speakers to address this very issue and the big guns are going to show up to talk about it. Here’s their line-up:

Featured Speakers will include:

• Mark DeSaulnier, California Senator
• Nancy Skinner, California State Assemblymember
• Craig Cheslog, Principal Advisor to State Superintendent of Public Instruction
• Crystal Brown, Founder of Educate our State
• Dr. Fred Brill, Lafayette School District Superintendent
• Dr. John Nickerson, Acalanes Union High School District Superintendent
• Phil Ting, Founder of Close the Loophole, Assessor/Recorder San Francisco

Pretty impressive group right???

OK that’s it. I’m done.

Do this for your kids and do it for me because really… I don’t like being on a soapbox – not at all.