Saying that education is "at the heart and soul of California's future," California State Treasurer Phil Angelides launched a statewide effort to save school spending from proposed state budget cuts. Speaking at news conferences in Danville, Citrus Heights, Chico and San Diego, he urged Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature to reject any additional cuts in education for the current and next fiscal years.
Angelides was joined at the news conferences by parents, teachers and education officials, including Nancy Waltz, president of the San Juan Teachers Association; Mary Jane Keogh, president of the San Ramon Teachers Association; George Young, president of the Chico Unified Teachers Association; and Jim Groth, president of the Chula Vista Teachers Association. The groups asked the governor and lawmakers to seriously consider new revenue options to help ensure a well-educated workforce for California's future.
In a letter sent to Gov. Davis and legislative leaders earlier in the week, Angelides charged that the Republican minority in the state Legislature "is refusing to even rationally discuss balanced and fair approaches" to balancing the budget. Their stance "is undermining our fiscal integrity and blocking the critical investments needed to assure California's continued progress." At the news conferences, he asked the governor and lawmakers to "change course on the debate over the budget," and to ensure that the state meets its core responsibility of educating the children of California.
"The strength of our economy in the decades ahead will be in large part dictated by the smart investments we make today in the public fabric of our society," Angelides wrote in his letter. "No other endeavor more aptly illustrates this principle than the education of our state's youth."
Each year, he said, Californians spend more on automobiles than they do on the education of children and more than 10 times what's spent on behalf of the state's university system.
Nothing has transpired over the last year to lead Californians "to retreat from our commitment to first-class schools," Angelides wrote in his letter. "Indeed, there is ample evidence that our increased investment in education over the past few years already has begun to yield positive results."
Acknowledging that "no one likes new or higher taxes," he pointed to economist Stephen Levy of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy and Nobel recipient Joseph Stiglitz, whose studies have concluded that temporary tax increases to pay for critical investments such as education represent better economic policy than deep spending cuts.