Ok, I admit it, today I am picking on an easy target: California’s education system. As we all know, it sucks. Big time. Let’s go over some of the statistics:
* Only 36.3% of California’s high school graduates go on to college, compared to 40% nationally.
* We rank 18th out of the 20 largest states in the percentage of 12th graders who go directly to college and 17th in the amount who ever go to college at all.
* We are 30th in spending per pupil
* 49th in student to teacher ratios, and
* UC fees have increased 300% in the last 10 years
Yikes. In this blog though, I would like to concentrate on bullet #3! Only twenty states spend less per pupil than California. And what exactly are we spending that money on? Before school started this year, my sister (who teaches 1st grade – damned those kids are cute) confessed that the budget crisis is creating a borderline hostile atmosphere at her school as the various grade levels duke it out for whatever money they can get their hands on. In the same breath, she told me that she wasn’t sure she would even have the budget money to provide her five and six year olds (who go through erasers like no other) with enough pencils for the school year. Tragic.
As it that wasn’t bad enough in and of itself though, let’s talk about earmarks! As school budgets are created by those higher ups somewhere out there, money gets set aside for certain activities or expenses and once those budgets are passed it becomes illegal to spend that money on anything else. For example, at my sister’s school thousands of dollars has been tied up to buy new PE equipment. Now, that’s very nice and everything, but the school can’t afford to hire a PE teacher so there is no PE program to buy new equipment for! And in the meantime my sister is worried about pencils.
In a really great example of misused funds, remember Swine Flu? On Friday, state schools chief Jack O’Connell announced that the state has purchased 23 million masks and gloves to prevent the spread of Swine Flu. Yup, even if those suckers only cost 50 cents apiece, we’re talking over $11 million. (If you’d like your own Swine Flu mask now that flu season is almost over, there’s a pretty good assortment here: http://www.google.com/products?q=swine+flu+mask&rlz=1I7DLUS_en&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=yOcaS-1RjbCzA8Xr6PwE&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=6&ved=0CDgQrQQwBQ)
The supplies were paid for by a federal grant which was given for the sole purpose of purchasing the masks and gloves.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr09/yr09rel160.asp
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten5-2009dec05,0,2869973.column
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,579367,00.html
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