What Governor Brown DIDN'T Say...

The Patch recently posted a story entitled:

Brown's 2014-15 Budget Increases School Funding for Neediest Students

A few excerpts from this story include:

"Overall, Gov. Brown is suggesting to grow the state budget by 5 percent."

Did Governor Brown also suggest how Californians are supposed to pay for this increased budget growth and spending? Did he mention that California is currently over $419 billion in debt and growing daily? Did he suggest why he believes it is wise to increase the state's budget (in any area) in the face of this monstrous and deepening public debt?

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"In education dollars, that means $6.3 billion more in 2014-15 than this year for all education, $2,188 more per K-12 student over 2011-12 funding."

Did Governor Brown mention that public school funding is already the largest program in the state's budget, receiving more than 40 percent of the state's General Fund resources? Did Governor Brown explain why Californians should spend still more public funds on a public education paradigm that is currently failing and has been failing California for many decades?

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"The formula starts with the state funding every student at the same level, but then gives additional money for low-income students, English language learners and students in foster care."

Did Governor Brown clarify that California does not entirely fund any of its students, let alone "every" student? Did he mention that California currently receives $7.3 billion each year in federal taxpayer funds for education? Did he explain why federal taxpayers in South Dakota, Florida, Maine, Arizona, or any other state should continue to help fund California's failing public education system?

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The True Challenges

Governor Brown (a Democrat), facilitated by the Democrat supermajority in the state legislature, demonstrates that he plans to continue to tax and spend California into oblivion. California has been making recent headway in its annual budget deficits but rather than apply those occasional surpluses exclusively to the state's ever-deepening debt and, heaven forbid, actually cutting taxes, he proposes to increase spending instead.

Governor Brown's fiscal policy is patently unsound, which is why California currently has the largest total public debt of any other state in the nation.

California's public education policy and system are even less sound. Despite spending trillions of state and federal taxpayer dollars on public education over the past several decades, California remains near the bottom of virtually every current public education performance ranking in the nation.

The True Solutions

At what point do more reasonable and intelligent Californians decide that enough is enough? At what point do Californians begin electing more truly conservative people to represent them in Sacramento and on their local school boards? At what point do Californians acknowledge that reasonable school choice initiatives can improve the overall quality of K-12 education in their state and stop allowing Teachers' Unions to continue to effectively combat the adoption of these initiatives?

According to the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, perhaps the best school choice option for California would be a system of state tax credits that would allow each state taxpayer with K-12 students to better afford alternative educational options for their own children. You see, under the current system, all California taxpayers have no choice but to pay (through their federal and state income and state property taxes) to support the current failed public education system in California. This leaves all state taxpayers with less of the income they earn, to be able to afford an education alternative that might work better for their own children. A system of tax credits for such wage earners and property owners would return at least some of those funds to them so that they could better afford to make education decisions for their own children.

This approach could be particularly significant and beneficial for lower income families who typically live in inner-city neighborhoods with (statistically speaking) the greatest number of under-performing public schools. Upper income families tend to have more disposable income and, so, can better afford alternatives to government-run schools despite the heavy tax burdens imposed in California. Lower income families have less disposable income and, so, are less able to avail themselves of alternatives to their largely failing, local, government-run schools. How is this fair to those families and those children? Should they not also have an opportunity to provide or receive a decent education? I think so. Teachers' Unions, however, tend to disagree.  

Organized Resistance

Every time a reasonable school choice initiative is placed on a ballot in California, the national, state and local Teachers' Unions pour millions of political action fund dollars into defeating it. Why?

It is very simple. The primary purpose of a teachers' union is to protect the jobs, wages, and benefits of its members. It is not to improve education. It is not to effectively educate children. It is to protect member teachers' jobs and compensation...all member teachers' jobs, even those members who demonstrate little or no ability to effectively educate our children.

Reasonable school choice initiatives tend to threaten the jobs of bad public school teachers because such initiatives force government-run schools to become more competitive...they force schools to dismiss bad teachers and to only retain good ones. Teachers' Unions want none of that. Their purpose is to fight to retain the jobs of all member teachers, good or bad.

So every time a reasonable school choice initiative appears on a ballot, unionized teachers expend funds, staff phone banks, walk precincts, circulate petitions, and stage demonstrations in their organized efforts to defeat it.

The Governor didn't say that either. Why?

Could it be because as of June 2012, according to California Watch: "(T)he biggest special interest donor, the California Teachers Association, spent more than $118 million on campaigns in the state during the past five election cycles and the first half of this one"? Or that "(t)he union has focused overwhelmingly on initiatives, spending $100 million of that war chest advocating and opposing ballot measures over the past dozen years"? I happen to think so. What do you think?

Californians really should spend less time considering the things their Governor does say, and more time considering the things he does not.

Author John B. Greet is a Long Beach native and retired LBPD sergeant who currently resides in the Pacific Northwest.