John Affeldt, Public Advocates
Teachers in Sacramento, west Fresno County and Dublin may soon go on strike over the same bread and butter issues that were fought over in Oakland: low teacher pay, large class sizes, and few counselors and nurses.
If you didn’t know better, you might mistake California for a declining Rust Belt state. But it’s not. California is über-rich. The shameful truth behind all this discord is that California is fabulously wealthy; yet for decades, it has starved its public schools and 6 million children of the resources necessary to succeed.
With a GDP of $2.7 trillion, California is the world’s 5th largest economy—surpassed only by behemoths like China, Japan, Germany and the United States itself. Tech giants like Apple, Facebook, Netflix, and Google are synonymous with California. So are Fortune 500 companies like Chevron, Wells Fargo, Disney, Gap and Visa. Home to Hollywood, Napa Valley, Palm Springs, Disneyland and Lake Tahoe, tourists pump almost $132 billion into the economy every year. It’s the largest manufacturing state in the country, and this year, the Golden State will be home to thousands of new millionaires as tech companies rush to go public.
Yet, as Gov. Gavin Newsom has noted, California ranks 41st in per pupil spending nationwide. As a consequence, in our high-cost state, we have fewer adults—teachers, counselors, nurses, librarians, administrators—per student than all but two states and struggle to pay a living wage to those who serve.
In a state with such vast wealth, we actually can afford to meet the school funding shortfall—which one recent study concluded to be some $25 billion annually. Without that investment, we are doomed to repeat the same battles over paying teachers a fair wage vs. providing basic resources vs. supporting high-need students—battles that end with short-term unsustainable bargains and underperforming students.
We’re already seeing cash-strapped districts tap into money set aside for English learners, foster youth and low-income students to pay for across-the-board raises and class-size reductions. In the case of the Los Angeles district, financial reserves are covering the immediate $330 million cost of its recent settlement, but it appears the bulk of the money promised in the deal was originally intended for high-need students. In Oakland, successful foster youth case managers and restorative justice programs are being cut to scrape together funds to settle its contract.
The good news is that for the first time since the massive cuts to education in the 1970s, we have a governor calling for a conversation on funding adequacy. In fact, several revenue ideas are floating around Sacramento that deserve consideration—from joining the majority of states that tax services in addition to income, to closing gas tax and inheritance loopholes, to enhancing options for local school boards or counties to raise school revenue, to name just a few.
More immediately, the governor and the Legislature can take action to relieve school districts of the disproportionate pension burden foisted upon them in 2014 beyond the $3 billion temporary fix that Newsom has already proposed.
Newsom could also come out in strong support of the 2020 ballot proposition to amend Proposition 13 by requiring the regular reassessment of commercial property at fair market value while leaving in place protections for homes. That move alone would raise nearly $5 billion annually for education.
But more than words and promises of conversations, we need bold action now to equitably share California’s vast wealth. Our teachers and students shouldn’t have to beg.
John Affeldt is a managing attorney at Public Advocates in San Francisco, where he focuses on educational equity issues through litigation, policy advocacy and partnerships with grassroots organizations.
