Contact Robin Swanson: 916-443-1486
Sacramento - Education Coalition policy experts hosted a budget briefing on June 3 to announce their support of the Assembly budget proposal and to oppose the Governor’s May Budget Revision, which cuts more than $4.1 billion from California’s schools and students according to the Legislative Analysts’ Office.
The Governor’s proposed budget would further reduce revenue limit funding, the general purpose support for schools, by $1.5 billion. This represents a cut of about $250 per student. The Governor also proposes cuts of $1.4 billion to child development programs, $28 million to county offices of education, $550 million from the K-3 Class Size Reduction program, and $206 million from virtually all K-12 programs to impose a negative cost-ofliving adjustment.
The Assembly budget proposal honors the commitment made less than a year ago by the Governor and the Legislature to California’s students, does not suspend or manipulate the Proposition 98 Constitutional funding guarantee for public education, and does not impose more cuts on schools that have been devastated by $17 billion in cuts over the past two years.
“The Governor and legislators need to raise the revenues necessary to invest in California’s students now,” said Debbie Look, the legislative director of the California State PTA. “With nearly 1 million PTA members throughout the state, we know just how hard parents and many others are working to help schools survive during these tough times. But we cannot make up for the non-stop budget cuts that our children have endured.”
At the press conference, members of the Education Coalition called on the Governor and legislators to stop breaking promises to our students; reject further cuts to schools; restore funds owed to districts; and protect voter-approved Proposition 98.
“More than 26,000 teachers received pink slips earlier this year,” said Estelle Lemieux, legislative advocate for the California Teachers Association. “These devastating cuts mean fewer teachers in our classrooms, larger class sizes and less individualized attention for our students to help them learn. We cannot expect our students to continue to do more with less and less. It’s not fair to them, their education and their future.”
“Schools have been forced to implement the bulk of budget cuts to balance the budget for too long," said Bob Wells, Executive Director of the Association of California School Administrators. “Our schools now are at the bottom in the nation compared to other states in virtually every educational spending category, yet California remains one of the largest economies in the world. We're calling on the Governor and lawmakers to invest in the future and make our schools and students priorities now."
The Education Coalition represents more than 2.5 million teachers, parents, administrators, school board members, school employees and other education advocates in California. For more information, please visit the Education Coalition website at www.protectourstudents.org.