In 2009, 16,000 teachers and other public school employees lost their jobs. The devastating effect on the quality of education in this state is just beginning to be felt. Now we learn that insane policy of mass firings of teachers and school employees is going to be renewed, as 23,000 more have received pink slips this month:

Faced with another year of potentially deep budget cuts, California's public schools have sent out 22,000 pink slips to teachers and school employees, according to the state's superintendent.

"Our state budget crisis has forced districts to lay off thousands of teachers over the past few years," said Jack O'Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction. "The governor has proposed cutting another $2.4 billion from public education. While the education community opposes these cuts, our schools are forced to prepare for this potential outcome by issuing a massive wave of potential layoff notices."

(Note: CTA reports today that the number of layoffs is now 23,225)

Arnold Schwarzenegger's office tried to spin this as not their fault, and even claimed the governor wasn't making further cuts to K-12 budgets:

Still, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Aaron McLear, took umbrage with O'Connell's characterization of the governor's January budget proposal, noting that Schwarzenegger has proposed allocating the same amount of money for K-12 and community colleges as he did last year.

What McLear didn't say is that because of the (senseless) expiration of federal stimulus funds, keeping K-12 budgets the same in 2010-11 as in 2009-10 is a /de facto/ budget cut. Last March over 30,000 pink slips were issued, and it appears stimulus funds helped about half of those employees to get rehired for this current school year, most of whom were on 1-year temporary contracts. Without stimulus funds, and with a freeze in education spending, those teachers will get laid off for good this summer.

So far none of the gubernatorial candidates have addressed the destruction of our schools. Sure, Meg Whitman pledges to "fix education" but also pledges to blow an enormous hole in the state budget deficit with her tax cuts for the rich. How will she do both?

As Joe Garofoli points out, it might have something to do with her attack on public employee unions. Apparently she thinks teachers and other public workers, who make a middle-class living and retire with a decent though by no means generous pension, make too much money and should learn to do with less.

That's not going to solve the problems of our schools. If teacher pay decreases, it will become even more difficult to keep qualified teachers in the classroom to provide the education students deserve.

But that seems to be Whitman's approach, since she is on record as opposing new taxes. As California's schools suffer, Meg Whitman is showing no sign of wanting to help reverse the trend.

It's 1995 all over again, as Republican-induced government shutdowns are all the rage. Congressional Republicans are planning a shutdown in September if they don't get their way on drilling, which looks to be their core electoral strategy going into November.

Here in California the possibility looms as Republicans show no sign of budging on the budget. Saturday is the deadline for adding propositions to the November ballot, and as most budget solutions proposed have involved going to voters - whether it's Arnold's lottery bonds, his sales tax plan, or the Republicans' spending cap demands, the deadline becomes all-important:   Read More »

Here in the dog days of April, as the state awaits the governor's May Revise, frustration seems to be setting in over the budget. The real political battles will begin in earnest after the May Revise, but the jockeying for position has been going on for some time, including in the state's media. Unsurprisingly, the media wants to spin the budget crisis as a failure of all Sacramento politicians, when in fact the current impasse is the responsibility of one group alone: the Republicans.

As an article in Sunday's Sac Bee would have us believe, there is "scant support for budget changes." But a deeper look shows that while Democrats have already proposed budget fixes, such as closing the yacht loophole and creating an oil severance tax (as exists in nearly every other state), it is the Republicans alone that have blocked meaningful budget action.

And why have they done so? Republicans want us to believe that *any* revenue solution is economically damaging:

However, Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto, the GOP's incoming leader, said the state should not take away credits at a time when the economy is struggling.

Other ideas that have yet to gain traction would raise income taxes on high-wage earners or amend Proposition 13 to assess businesses in the same way as residential property. The latter, known as "split-roll" property tax, would require that commercial and industrial properties be reassessed more regularly, bringing the state an estimated $3 billion annually.

Cogdill dismissed all as non-starters.

"We should help the general fund by stimulating the economy and be a more beneficial partner with industry, rather than stifling them," Cogdill said.

But whose economy is stimulated by revenue cuts? Who actually sees this so-called economic growth? And who suffers from the spending cuts that are forced by the revenue cuts? A closer look at the overall situation shows that the Republicans' claims are nonsense. Tax cuts provide economic growth for a wealthy few, but cause economic distress for pretty much everyone else - *especially* when those tax cuts come at the expense of education. More below.   Read More »