( – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

“Our students should be able to pursue their dream of a college degree without having to jeopardize their financial future by going deep into debt,” Assembly Member Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont)said.  “This is a crisis that is getting worse.  A college education is supposed to improve your financial security not destroy it.  That is why I have introduced a Student Bill of Rights.”

Wieckowski’s Student Bill of Rights package, being introduced to the State Assembly this spring, takes a two-pronged approach to the issue by educating students and helping them become financially-literate consumers on the front end, and easing the burden for those graduates who are struggling and not able to pay their debt after leaving college.

His bills, AB 233, AB 391, AB 534 and Assembly Joint Resolution 11 are currently moving through the Legislature and have broad support from student, consumer, labor, and legal advocates.

We’re inviting all California post-secondary (college, community college, trade programs, university) students and their advocates to meet on the south steps of the State Capitol on Monday, April 8 at 11:30 a.m. to make the statement that California’s students have a right to higher education with a debt free future! Join us as we call for higher education debt reform that will protect Californians from crippling student loan debt.

As America’s college students face over $1 trillion in higher education debt, NOW is the time to make sure Californians have a safe future with financial opportunities. Private student loans carry risks that all Californians should be aware of and have increased protection from, through financial literacy programs and improved counseling tied to private student loans.

Monday, April 8 at 11:30 a.m. join Assemblymember Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont), State Controller John Chiang, California State Student Association, and others as we raise awareness about the Student Bill of Rights currently in consideration in the State Assembly. Bring your stories and your support; bring your voice and be heard! Help the state take action so that California’s students have the right to higher education with a debt-free future! We welcome all student groups, all post-secondary educators, parents, and all education advocates. We have the opportunity right now to make a difference for ourselves and the generations of students to come!

For more information, contact Assemblymember Wieckowski’s office at (916) 319-2025 or [email protected]

By Gary Cohn

At first glance, it is one of the nation’s hottest new education-reform movements, a seemingly populist crusade to empower poor parents and fix failing public schools. But a closer examination reveals that the “parent-trigger” movement is being heavily financed by the conservative Walton Family Foundation, one of the nation’s largest and most strident anti-union organizations, a Frying Pan News investigation has shown.

Since 2009, the foundation has poured more than $6.3 million into Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles advocacy group that is in the forefront of the parent-trigger campaign in California and the nation. Its heavy reliance on Walton money, critics say, raises questions about the independence of Parent Revolution and the intentions of the Walton Family Foundation.

While Parent Revolution identifies the Walton Family Foundation as one of several donors on its Web site, the full extent of contributions from the Walton foundation and other donors hasn’t been publicly known until now. Information supplied to Frying Pan News by Parent Revolution and publicly available tax records show that a total of 18 separate foundations have given more than $14.8 million to the group since its founding in 2009.

Other multimillion dollar contributors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ($1.6 million); the Laura and John Arnold Foundation ($1.5 million); the Wasserman Foundation ($1.5 million); the Broad Foundation ($1.45 million) and the Emerson Collective Education Fund ($1.2 million), founded by Laurence Powell Jobs, the widow of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

But the Walton Family Foundation is by far Parent Revolution’s largest benefactor, contributing 43 percent of the $14.9 million total.

“Why is all this money coming in?” asks John Rogers, director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access, who has studied the parent-trigger movement. “It doesn’t seem to be about educational improvements . . . It seems to be about creating greater pressure to challenge teachers’ unions rather than an authentic way to improve education opportunities.” The parent-trigger law diminishes the influence of teachers’ unions and it allows public schools to be turned into nonunion charters.

The Walton Family Foundation, which is run by the family of Walmart founder Sam Walton, is one of the nation’s largest private donors to charter schools. The foundation has also used its money and clout to fund conservative research groups (including the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation) whose analysts have then defended Walmart and its anti-union policies on newspaper opinion pages and in testimony to government committees. In education, it is a strong proponent of the expansion of charter schools, school voucher programs and other efforts to privatize public education. It also gives money to the influential trade publication Education Week to write about parent empowerment issues.

Another large donor to Parent Revolution, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation of Houston, Texas, supports charter schools and also has funded conservative efforts to overhaul and limit pensions in California, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting’s California Watch. John Arnold is a billionaire former Enron trader who also founded a successful hedge fund.

The Broad Foundation, founded by Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe, and the Gates Foundation, also are big backers of charter schools and other market-driven education reforms, though their overall policies are far less conservative than the Walton Family Foundation.

“Everything the Walton foundation has done over the years is to support privatization and anti-union policies,” Diane Ravitch, an education historian and former Assistant Secretary of Education under President George H.W. Bush, tells Frying Pan News. “They want privatization and Parent Revolution promotes their goals.”

Ben Austin, Parent Revolution’s chief executive, strongly denies that the contributions from the Walton Family Foundation and other donors influence his organization’s stated mission.

“We’ve never had a funder call and intimate that we should do one thing and not another,” Austin insists to Frying Pan News. “We make every decision through the lens of giving parents’ power and helping parents to improve the outcome for their kids. What we are trying to do is give low-income parents a similar sense of power that middle class parents take for granted.”

Yet questions persist about the symbiotic relationship between funder and funded. Parent Revolution is no ordinary reform group, but the spearhead of a movement that seeks to take control of failing public schools and turn them around through conversion to charter schools or in-district reforms — including staff and principal firings. Likewise, the Walton Family Foundation is no ordinary benefactor. Based in Bentonville, Arkansas and fed by the profits of the world’s largest retail chain, it leaves a politically conservative mark on its favorite projects.

The Walton foundation, for example, wholeheartedly embraces all state parent-trigger laws, whose language stems from model legislation crafted by the American Leadership Exchange Council (ALEC) – a corporate-controlled generator of far-right legislation, including Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground gun law and the recent statute that made Michigan a right-to-work state.

A 2012 Education Week article described how, in 2010, the Heartland Institute, an ultra-conservative Chicago think tank, borrowed Parent Revolution’s new idea and took it to ALEC.

“Heartland put together a parent-trigger policy proposal and presented it to ALEC, which created model legislation, [that,] . . . sometimes with variations, ended up appearing in about 10 to 15 states,” reported Education Week.

The man whose concept of parent triggers so impressed the Heartland Institute is Parent Revolution’s Austin, a former state school board member and Los Angeles deputy mayor under Richard Riordan. Just as Parent Revolution has become the leading player of the parent-trigger movement, so has Austin become Parent Revolution’s national face. As his group’s executive director, Austin received a total compensation of $239,451 in 2011, according to the organization’s latest available tax filing.  

California became the first state to pass a parent-trigger law in 2010. The law allows systemically struggling schools to be taken over if parent activists are able to get 51 percent of a failed school’s parents to sign a petition. The movement received a big boost from Hollywood last year with the release of the film Won’t Back Down, which tells the story of two parents (one a teacher) who use a parent-trigger type law to take over their children’s failing school in a poor Pittsburgh neighborhood. The movie largely depicts the teachers’ union and school bureaucracy as opponents of change. It was produced and funded by Walden Media, which is owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz, a longtime champion of hard-right causes.

Michelle Rhee, whose group StudentsFirst is one of the nation’s leading proponents of parent-trigger laws and other efforts to privatize public education, sponsored a series of screenings and hosted panel discussions to promote the film and its message. Panelists included former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Parent Revolution’s Austin.

While advocates claim parent triggers are intended to empower parents, critics charge that they target schools in the poorest areas with high immigrant neighborhoods, populations that are particularly vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation. The critics contend that parents may lose power once a school is converted to a charter.

“Parents get the idea they will have a say in how a [charter] school is run,” says Brian Hayes, a former English teacher who has taught in both traditional and charter schools in Los Angeles. “In many cases the parents are shunted aside when an outside charter organization takes over a school.”

Diane Ravitch, an outspoken opponent of parent triggers, points out that alternatives to privatization include reducing class sizes and working to solve specific problems in public schools – if, say, a school has a large number of Latino students who speak only limited English, one way to improve the school would be to send in more Spanish-speaking teachers.

In a recent interview with Frying Pan News, Austin vehemently disputed the notion that his organization is pushing for privatization of schools or that it blindly follows its funders’ agendas. Austin, who was joined by Patrick DeTemple, Parent Revolution’s senior strategist, spoke at the group’s downtown headquarters. The ambience was more Google campus than corporate: Austin and DeTemple sat on big floor cushions in a meeting room, while a large foosball table and a couple of swings dominated the main corridor of the office.

As one indication of his group’s autonomy, Austin points to Parent Revolution’s opposition last year to a proposed Arizona parent-trigger proposal that would have allowed for the use of “empowerment accounts” (in effect, school vouchers), even though its biggest funder, the Walton Family Foundation, has long been an advocate of vouchers. He also wrote an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press last year in which he generally supported a Michigan parent-trigger bill, but opposed a provision that would have allowed for conversion of public schools to for-profit charters, as opposed to non-profits.

“We have the freedom to take these positions,” Austin says. “Our funders fund us because they believe in parent empowerment. If they disagree they don’t have to fund us.”

DeTemple stressed that turning schools over to charter operators was only one of the options available under California’s parent-trigger law. “We’re agnostic on the question of whether parents choose a charter school or a non-charter school [option],” DeTemple says. “There aren’t enough [top quality] charters. The only real path must involve transformation of district school systems. The charter path [alone] does not get you to that goal.”  

So far, however, parent trigger has only been successfully used in one instance – and in that case, a public school is being converted to a charter. It occurred in Adelanto, a blue-collar town tucked onto San Bernardino County’s High Desert. After a bitter, bruising fight that split the community and ended up in court, the Adelanto school board voted in January to convert its struggling Desert Trails Elementary School to a charter, beginning next fall.

Opponents, including Desert Trails parent Lori Yuan, say that this parent-trigger effort was controlled by organizers brought in by Parent Revolution, and that they tricked the community into believing this was simply an effort to improve conditions at the school, not to give it over to a private charter operator. Parent Revolution officials, in turn, say that their opposition used unethical tactics in contesting the petitions.

“Our community was misled,” recalls Yuan, who has two children at the school. “Parents didn’t know they were signing for a charter takeover.”

Shelly Whitfield, who has five children at Desert Trails Elementary, says she was repeatedly approached at home and school to sign a petition. “They came to my door several times and said they were going to get computers and help get the kids better lunches,” she remembers. She says she is strongly opposed to the end result – the conversion of the school to a charter operation.

Cynthia Ramirez, one of the parents behind the parent-trigger efforts in Adelanto, says that at first the parents tried to work with school officials to make changes.

“At the beginning, nobody was considering a charter,” she recalls. But Ramirez says district officials repeatedly rebuffed and disrespected efforts by the parent group to bring about changes. Among other things, she says parents were seeking a voice in picking a new principal and continuous say in how the school would be run. “We wanted to have some kind of power, to be involved,” she says.

Ramirez, who has a daughter at the school, says wasn’t satisfied with the quality of education at the school. Homework was too easy, kids weren’t being challenged, she says.

Parent Revolution provided help in many ways. It rented a house for the Desert Trails’ activist parents to use as a headquarters, provided a full-time organizer to work with them, and also sent in experts to train and advise parents on everything from strategy on dealing with the school board to writing letters to help in researching potential charter schools, Ramirez and others say. It even provided T-shirts.

“They’ve been providing everything we asked for,” says Ramirez, adding that Parent Revolution left all final decisions up to the local parents.

Yuan and other parents had contested the signatures gathered by parent-trigger advocates, but their challenge was rejected by a San Bernardino County Superior Court judge. In the end, only 53 of the 466 original signers would vote in an election to determine the school’s future. The bad feelings in the community over the battle for charter conversion have continued to this day.

“This was a true test of the mettle of empowered parents,” trumpeted FreedomWorks, a prime force in the Tea Party movement.

Yuan disagrees: “We’ve known all along this wasn’t a grassroots movement.”

The focus of Parent Revolution has lately shifted to the city of Los Angeles. In February, the city’s board of education approved the first use of the parent-trigger law at the West Adams District’s 24th Street Elementary School. It’s still not clear exactly what changes will take place at the school, or whether it will be given over to a charter operator. Other struggling Los Angeles schools, including Weigand Avenue Elementary in Watts, are also likely to consider or adopt parent-trigger takeovers in the months ahead.

Adelanto, meanwhile, represents the application of Parent Revolutionary theory into practice, with school children as the experiment’s key ingredients. The school, whose students are predominantly Latino and black, won’t become a charter until August, but will be operated by LaVerne Elementary Preparatory Academy, a high test-scoring nonprofit school whose “back to basics” curriculum includes classes in Latin and classical literature.

Whitfield, however, won’t be sending her children to LaVerne in the fall.

“My kids are not going to go there,” she says. “They’re taking away all the teachers my kids have been around for years. They took over our school, and I don’t think it’s fair. They’re not for the kids.”

(Gary Cohn writes for Frying Pan News.)

Former Assembly Speaker hopes to mediate with California Teachers

by Brian Leubitz

If you are planning to come to the CDP convention in Sacramento in a couple of weeks, it will be no secret that the teachers are an important constituency within the party. And they are critical for elected officials due to their willingness to fight, and spend, for the causes they consider important. Fabian Nunez knew this as Speaker, and he still knows it. But now he might get a chance to see the other side of labor, as he has agreed to represent Michelle Rhee’s “StudentsFirst” organization, a group that focuses on school reform, the extensive use of metrics for teachers, and being something of an opponent to teachers’ unions.

In an interview, Nunez, a Democrat who cut his political teeth as a union operative, said he hopes to play the role of mediator for StudentsFirst and labor leaders, though he made it clear that he thought the CTA had abused its clout with lawmakers. He cited the union’s successful efforts last year to kill legislation that would have sped the dismissal process for teachers who abused students.

Teachers unions said the bill was an attack on teachers’ due-process rights, giving school boards, rather than an administrative judge and two educators, final authority over dismissals.

“When that bill died, I think it gave a lot of people heartache,” Nunez said. “I think there are a lot of labor Democrats who are coming to the conclusion that we can’t read from the CTA script anymore.”(LA Times)

Of course, that bill has become a flashpoint for a lot of so-called reformers, but when it comes down to it, both major teachers unions have worked on negotiating a bill that can work to move potentially abusive teachers out of the classroom quickly while still maintaining a fair process. And just last week, Sen. Alex Padilla, the author of that original controversial bill, signed on to work with Asm. Joan Buchanan on the subject. Padilla is now the principal coauthor of AB 375 – Teacher Discipline and Dismissal and AB  1338 – Mandatory Reporting of Sexual and Child Abuse. (Press release here or over the flip)

But the ills of California education can be plainly spotted by anybody who understands simple arithmetic. We are chronically underfunding our schools. There are only 4 states that spend less per pupil than us, all of which are lower cost states. We are 43rd in educational results, perhaps higher than where we should be given our spending.

Our schools need additional resources, so teachers aren’t forced to spend their own money buying supplies for their students and that all students have the tools to be successful. I don’t doubt that the former Speaker has the best of intentions for our students, but maybe he can help push for some additional resources while he’s at the work of reforming. Our students, and their teachers, deserve better.

Photo credit: Former Speaker Fabian Nunez with Michael Moore, courtesy Randy Bayne

PRESS RELEASE Padilla and Buchanan Join Forces to Protect Children

by Kevin Singer, Communications Coordinator, Californians for Responsible Economic Development

In 2011 alone, California produced a grand total of approximately 200 million barrels of oil and 230 billion cubic feet of natural gas, making our state the fourth largest producer of oil and the tenth largest producer of natural gas in the country. Yet, despite this, California does not get a dime for the resources that are extracted from our state and sold on the global market. This is because, unlike every other major oil and natural gas producing state in the nation, California has not enacted an extraction fee on the energy that is taken right from under our feet.

Let’s think about this for a moment. California, the ninth largest economy in the world, is ranked 43rd in the country in terms of K-12 spending per pupil. The University of California, the flagship public university system of the nation, has seen a 14% decrease in funding since 2010. And at a time when a quality college education has never been more important, tuition is skyrocketing, making a diploma unaffordable for an increasing number of young Californians. Meanwhile, at 9.8% unemployment, even those who have graduated from college find themselves without work or working at jobs they are tremendously over-qualified for. The appalling disrepair of our municipal infrastructure only discourages employers from bringing more jobs to our state. But our state government has its hands tied behind its back. The $250 billion dollar state debt all but assures that there will be no additional funding for education and infrastructure in the near future.

And we are giving away our oil and natural gas. We have the wealth to fund the investments that California needs and deserves and we are giving it away. This is to say nothing of that fact that by not charging an extraction fee on oil and natural gas, our state, which prides itself as a leader of reducing CO2 emissions, is not putting a price on the CO2 that eventually makes its way into the atmosphere. To say this is ridiculous would be an understatement. It is an outrage.

The California Modernization and Economic Development Act (or CMED) would put an end to it. By implementing a modest 9.5% extraction fee on oil and natural gas (Alaska, hardly an enemy of big oil, has implemented a fee of 24% on oil and natural gas that’s extracted from the state), CMED would raise between 2 and 2.5 billion dollars in revenue for California. A little more than half, 1.2 billion dollars, would be allocated in four equal parts for K-12, California Community Colleges, Cal State Universities, and the University of California for the purposes of increasing quality and restoring tuition to 2010 levels. 400 million dollars will be used to support small businesses by aiding their transition to cheaper, carbon-free and carbon-reduced forms of energy, which would in turn empower them to expand, hire additional workers, and reinvest. An additional 300 million dollars would be apportioned to the general funds of California County Governments for the purpose of upgrading and better maintaining municipal infrastructure, funding the conservation of regional park land and providing a multitude of other public services.

These are more than investments, they constitute a complete vision for responsible economic development in California. Making that vision a reality is as easy as ending the giveaway of our oil and natural gas, but it’ll take a popular movement if we truly want to realign the policies in Sacramento with the wishes and desires of Californians. Simply by taking a few moments, right now, and visiting www.cmedact.org, liking our Facebook, following us on Twitter, telling your friends or donating anything you can, even $5, you can provide the crucial grassroots support we need. It’s that easy. You could be the difference between failing to qualify and qualifying CMED on the 2014 ballot, so that Californians can have a chance to pass it democratically.

We can do this California, but not without your support. If you think it’s ridiculous that we are giving away our oil and natural gas at a time when California is more cash-strapped than ever, join our cause. It won’t be easy, but together we will qualify and pass the California Modernization and Economic Development Act and put our state back on the right track.

Federal budget fight puts thousands of jobs at risk

by Brian Leubitz

In case you haven’t heard (and if so, congrats on that), the federal government is busy trying to make California’s governance look smooth and easy.  The self-imposed reckless spending cuts across the board are scheduled to take effect on March 1, and right now a deal doesn’t look set to happen anytime soon. Sens. Coburn and McCaskill said as much a few days ago. Kevin Drum outlines why a deal is unlikely by simply outlining the possible outcomes:

1) Eliminate the sequester entirely. Zero chance of Republicans agreeing to this.

2) Ditch the defense cuts, replace them with domestic cuts plus a tax increase. Zero chance of Republicans agreeing to this.

3) Ditch the defense cuts, double the domestic cuts. Zero chance of Democrats agreeing to this.

4) Ditch the defense cuts, keep the domestic cuts. Approximately zero chance of Democrats agreeing to this.

5) Kick the can down the road with some kind of small-ball deal. Possible, I guess.

There are, of course, some minor shades between these options, but the room for negotiating is slim indeed. While polls show a majority of Americans would blame the Republicans, that doesn’t actually pay the bills and keep the lights on. While some argue that the cuts will weaken Republican resolve on their hard-line tax position, it is still a dangerous game. How dangerous here at home?

Well, the White House put out a report on how California will be hit by the cuts, and it isn’t pretty. Here is a quick sampler:

Education cuts: California would lose nearly $90million, putting over 1,200 teaching and support jobs at risk.

Travel: Customs and homeland security resources would be drastically cut. Wait times at the bigger airports, like SFO and LAX could increase by over 90 minutes.

Health: Several programs would take big cuts. Vaccines for children would lose over a million dollars, meaning 15,000 children wouldn’t be vaccinated. Substance abuse programs would lose $12.4 for treatment, closing off that option for 9,400 patients. And HIV testing would lose $2million, meaning almost 50,000 fewer tests.

Of course, that is just a smattering of the cuts, they also extend to job training and placement, child care, and environmental cuts. Yet there has been little sign of movement from the hard-line GOP caucus in the House, and the deadline is just a few days away.

This is the nineth part of a series of posts analyzing California’s propositions:

• Vote Yes on Proposition 30 – Jerry Brown’s Budget Plan

• Vote No on Proposition 31 – Changes to State Budgeting

• Vote No on Proposition 32 – Union-busting

• VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 33 – CAR INSURANCE

• Vote Yes on Proposition 34 – Death Penalty

• Vote No on Proposition 35 – Human Trafficking

• Vote No on Proposition 36: Three Strikes Law

• Vote No on Proposition 37: Genetically Engineered Food

• Vote No on Proposition 38: Molly Munger’s Tax Initiative

• Vote No on Proposition 39: Multistate Businesses Taxes

An Unfortunate Proposition…

There are two revenue-increasing propositions before the public. There is Proposition 30, the good one backed by Jerry Brown, and Proposition 38, the bad one. You should vote yes on Proposition 30 and no on Proposition 38. Unfortunately, that’s probably going to confuse a lot of people.

More below.

Proposition 38 is pushed by Molly Munger, a well-meaning attorney (funny how so many of the propositions have such well-meaning intentions yet bad consequences).

Basically, it’s an income tax increase. The tax increase is pretty huge; it catches even lower-income residents. Individuals with income over $7,316 and families or joint filers with income over $14,632 will have their taxes raised. The chart below, taken from the legislative analyst, explains in more detail:

Current and Proposed Personal Income Tax Rates Under Proposition 38
Single Filer’s Taxable Incomea	Joint Filers’ Taxable Incomea	Head-of-Household Filer’s Taxable Incomea	Current Marginal Tax Rateb	Proposed Additional Marginal Tax Rateb
$0-$7,316	$0-$14,632	$0-$14,642	1.0%	–
7,316-17,346	14,632-34,692	14,642-34,692	2.0	0.4%
17,346-27,377	34,692-54,754	34,692-44,721	4.0	0.7
27,377-38,004	54,754-76,008	44,721-55,348	6.0	1.1
38,004-48,029	76,008-96,058	55,348-65,376	8.0	1.4
48,029-100,000	96,058-200,000	65,376-136,118	9.3	1.6
100,000-250,000	200,000-500,000	136,118-340,294	9.3	1.8
250,000-500,000	500,000-1,000,000	340,294-680,589	9.3	1.9
500,000-1,000,000	1,000,000-2,000,000	680,589-1,361,178	9.3	2.0
1,000,000-2,500,000	2,000,000-5,000,000	1,361,178-3,402,944	9.3	2.1
Over 2,500,000	Over 5,000,000	Over 3,402,944	9.3	2.2
a  Income brackets shown were in effect for 2011 and will be adjusted for inflation in future years. Single filers also include married individuals and registered domestic partners (RDPs) who file taxes separately. Joint filers include married and RDP couples who file jointly, as well as qualified widows or widowers with a dependent child.
b  Marginal tax rates apply to taxable income in each tax bracket listed. For example, a single tax filer with taxable income of $15,000 could have had a 2011 tax liability under current tax rates of $227: the sum of $73 (which equals 1 percent of the filer’s first $7,316 of income) and $154 (2 percent of the filer’s income over $7,316). This tax liability would be reduced-and potentially eliminated-by personal, dependent, senior, and other tax credits, among other factors. The proposed additional tax rates would take effect beginning in 2013 and end in 2024. Current tax rates listed exclude the mental health tax rate of 1 percent for taxable income in excess of $1 million.

In contrast, Proposition 30’s income tax only affects individuals with income over $250,000, joint filers with income over $500,000, and head-of-household’s with over $340,000.

The revenue raised goes mostly to education, with the rest to repay state debt. Proposition 38’s revenues go to a new fund called the California Education Trust Fund. There are three ways the revenue is distributed: to schools, to ECE (Early Care and Education) programs, and to state debt. The amount given to each each differs per year, although schools get the majority and ECE gets the least. Of the money given to schools 70% goes to education program grants; 18% goes to low-income student grants; and 12% goes to training, technology, and teaching materials grants. Of the amount given to ECE programs, a minority goes to restoring cuts in current ECE programs and the rest goes to expanding the programs (e.g. 51% goes to subsidized preschool for children aged three to five form low-income families). The rest pays state debt. From the legislative analyst:

Allocation of Revenues Raised by Proposition 38
	2013-14 and 2014-15	2015-16 and 2016-17	2017-18 Through 2023-24
Schools	60%	60%	85%
Early Care and Education (ECE)	10	10	15
State debt payments	30	30a	–a
Totals	100%	100%	100%
Growth limit on allocations to schools and ECE programsa	No	Yes	Yes
a  Reflects minimum share dedicated to state debt payments. Revenues beyond growth limit also would be used to make debt payments.

It’s all very long and complicated. In the California official voter information guide, the legislative analysis of Proposition 38 is the longest. Reading Proposition 38’s legislative analysis made my head spin (even more than Proposition 31’s legislative analysis). I don’t like voting for propositions that make my head spin.

…Which Might Actually End Up Cutting Education!

Somewhat amazingly, Proposition 38 might not prevent huge education cuts next year. This is because the legislature passed a series of spending reduction called “trigger cuts” that would take effect if Proposition 30 was not approved. These include $5.354 billion from schools and community colleges, as well as $250 million each from the University of California and California State University systems. Tuition would certainly be raised at California state universities under these trigger cuts.

If Proposition 38 is approved and gets more votes than Proposition 30, then those education trigger cuts will still take place.

That means that under Proposition 38, college students at California state universities will still have their tuition raised (as well as their taxes). There will be both huge tax increases and huge spending cuts for education this year. Then next year there will be huge spending increases for education. That’s a terribly unstable situation.

Remember: Proposition 30 is the good proposition, Proposition 38 the bad one. Vote yes on Proposition 30 and no on Proposition 38.

–inoljt

This is the first part of a series of posts analyzing California’™s propositions.

• Vote Yes on Proposition 30 – Jerry Brown’s Budget Plan

• Vote No on Proposition 31 – Changes to State Budgeting

• Vote No on Proposition 32 – Union-busting

• VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 33 – CAR INSURANCE

California’s Budget Problems

Proposition 30 is the most important proposition on the ballot this year.

More below.

California, as is well known, has a big budget problem. This problem started with the onset of the economic recession and was worsened by a number of factors, ranging from extreme constraints on the legislature’™s power to Arnold Schwarzenegger’™s incompetence.

Things have gotten better lately. Schwarzenegger has been replaced with a governor who knows what he’s doing. The two-thirds supermajority requirement to pass a budget, which was responsible for much of the deadlock, no longer exists.

There are still big problems, however. California has implemented massive spending cuts to balance the budget. Program after program has been cut to the bone. Worse still, the state seems poised to cut far more if this proposition fails to pass.

Take the University of California system:

Since 2008, budget cuts have forced these universities to raise fees by more than 40%, compared with a national average of 15%. If Proposition 30 fails to pass, fees will be raised by 20% more still.

Why is this happening? It’s because the legislature has its hands tied. There are two ways to balance the budget: increase revenue and cut spending. California requires a two-thirds supermajority to do the former, and Republicans have consistently blocked revenue increases. So California has been left to cut, and cut, and cut.

Now, in general you should focus on cutting spending rather than increasing revenue to balance the budget. But California has taken it way too far. We have basically done nothing but cut and cut for nearly half a decade, without any revenue increases. There’™s basically nothing left to cut at this point. But if Proposition 30 doesn’™t pass the state will be looking once again for billions more to cut ($5.951 billion more, to be exact).

What Proposition 30 Does

Proposition 30 comes four years too late, but it’™s still very necessary today.

Yes, Proposition 30 is a temporary tax increase. It falls mainly on families making over $500,000 -“ but the sales tax will increase as well. The sales tax increase lasts for four years; the income tax increase for seven.

But the truth is that in a budget crisis, eventually somebody will get hurt. If it’™s not families making over $500,000 it’™ll be students and teachers and policemen and firefighters. For almost half a decade, budget cuts have again and again shafted these people. If Proposition 30 fails, they’™ll be hit once again. If Proposition 30 passes, the pain will shift to families making over $500,000.

I endorse this proposition knowing that I will sacrifice a bit. Many Californians (perhaps the majority) will vote against this proposition because of this fact. But it’s not as if they’re dodging the pain by voting against Proposition 30. They’™re just shifting it to their children.

–inoljt

By Jory Steele, Director, Education Equity Project, ACLU of Northern California

It should come as no surprise to Californians that our public schools are in crisis.  Headlines regularly decry California’s fiscal crisis and its devastating impact on our schools. One issue recently receiving a lot of attention is the shockingly high rates of suspension and expulsion, particularly for students of color, across the state.

Legislators and Gov. Jerry Brown are taking note.  This was a banner year for school discipline legislation. The legislature sent seven bills to Gov. Brown’s desk designed to reduce both the rates of suspension and expulsion and their disparate effects on students of color. We applaud Gov. Brown’s decision to sign five of those bills, which means that more students will stay in school, thereby improving their educational opportunities.

Does suspending students improve their behavior? Far from it. Students who are suspended or expelled even once are five times more likely to drop out, six times more likely to repeat a grade and three times more likely to have contact with the juvenile justice system in the following year than similar students who are not suspended or expelled. Schools with high rates of suspension do not perform well academically, meaning that all students in the school suffer.

According to a recent report, African American boys in Oakland were suspended at six times the rate of white boys last year alone.  An April 2012 report by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA reveals that in Stockton Unified School District, 38 percent of African American boys, 28 percent of American Indian boys and 19 percent of Latino boys were suspended at least once during the 2009-10 school year.  Last year, one high school in Stockton had a breathtaking 92 percent suspension rate.  Ninety-two percent.

School administrators are concerned about this problem.  A September report by Oakland-based EdSource found that 80 percent of respondents (who were school administrators) are concerned about the disproportionate impact of discipline policies on students of color.

While signing these bills addressing school discipline is significant, it is disappointing that Governor Brown vetoed AB 2242, which would have provided clearer guidelines on disciplining students for “willful defiance.”  Data show that some of the greatest racial disparities in discipline occur when discretionary disciplinary categories such as “willful defiance” are used.  AB 2242 would also have been responsive to the concerns of more than 80 percent of EdSource survey respondents seeking a clearer definition to vague terms such as “willful defiance.”

Though Gov. Brown missed an important opportunity by vetoing the bill, we nonetheless made great progress this year in helping to ensure equal educational opportunity for all students and are girded to continue the fight for further reforms next year.