Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
In California, Education Is Not A Priority.
It's been said many times that California ranks well below the national average in per pupil spending. But what does that mean to our school district? If you click here you can view the ranking by state and as you can see we are very close to the bottom. The numbers lag a few years behind, but in 2005-2006, Vermont was ranked #1 with $15,139 per student. Lets look at a few other states.
New York, $13, 064.00
Alaska, $12,090.00
Montana, $11,660.00
Arkansas, $9,756.00
The National Average is $9,963.00
California, $7,571.00 per student.
Keep in mind, these are 2005-2006 numbers. Once the final budget is voted on in Sacramento we may actually get less money for the 2010-2011 school year than we did in 2005-2006.
If the students in the MDUSD received the same funding as students in New York, the MDUSD would have an additional $181 million dollars per year to spend on our students.
If the students in the MDUSD received the same funding as students in Alaska, the MDUSD would have an additional $149 million dollars per year to spend on our students.
If the students in the MDUSD received the same funding as students in Montana, the MDUSD would have an additional $134 million dollars per year to spend on our students.
If the students in the MDUSD received the same funding as students in Arkansas, the MDUSD would have an additional $72 million dollars per year to spend on our students.
If the students in the MDUSD received the same funding as the national average for per pupil funding, the MDUSD would have an additional $78 million dollars per year to spend on our students. To me that is the most mind blowing number. The State would have to give our school district an additional $78 million just to get to the national average.
Sacramento is full of politicians who each and every year run on a campaign platform that they are going to change education for the better. In all of my years being involved in politics, I have never seen a politician running for the Legislature or for Governor who didn't say that education was one of their highest priorities.
I really want to understand why California is ranked so low. I looked at the other states relative to California to see if maybe California taxed its citizens less and therefore had fewer dollars to spend on education; that isn't it. I looked at State income tax and State sales tax and among the states that I used for comparison, California ranks #1 with the highest income and sales tax. Even when you look at fuel tax, there are few states who tax their citizens more than California.
On Tuesday February 23, 2010, we will once again meet as a School Board with the citizens of our community and debate a list of items that we must take away from our students because the State continues cut our budget. We will have to ask our already underpaid and overworked employees to sacrifice more. We will discuss lowering academic expectations in hopes that costs will drop as well. We will talk about reducing services to our adult school, a service that serves our retired students and students who are trying to attain new career skills in a down economy. Etc. Etc. Etc. We have already cut millions from our budget and we will have to cut millions more.
So how are we going to change as a state? How are we as parents going to demand that our students be made as high a priority as kids from Arkansas or Montana? How many more empty promises are we as citizens going to take from the politicians who run Sacramento? Does anyone really believe that a high quality solution exists in the system of partisan politics? Does anyone really believe that a solution exists in a political system where people spend millions of dollars to run for a 2 year seat in the California Legislature that pays less than $200,000 per year?
In the short term the only way that our community will be able to restore some of the programs that are being taken away from our kids will be to raise revenues via a bond initiative and or a parcel tax. The state is not going to step in and save our kids, we as a community must.
Longer term, we must drive systemic change statewide. The people must regain control. The citizens of our communities must decide what is best for our children and for our future. It is clear that the politicians can't or won't.
When you talk to the students of our district, they understand the problems pretty well, and they can figure out the solutions. If our students understand the problems and can develop reasonable solutions, why can't our State politicians?
We need real change.
New York, $13, 064.00
Alaska, $12,090.00
Montana, $11,660.00
Arkansas, $9,756.00
The National Average is $9,963.00
California, $7,571.00 per student.
Keep in mind, these are 2005-2006 numbers. Once the final budget is voted on in Sacramento we may actually get less money for the 2010-2011 school year than we did in 2005-2006.
If the students in the MDUSD received the same funding as students in New York, the MDUSD would have an additional $181 million dollars per year to spend on our students.
If the students in the MDUSD received the same funding as students in Alaska, the MDUSD would have an additional $149 million dollars per year to spend on our students.
If the students in the MDUSD received the same funding as students in Montana, the MDUSD would have an additional $134 million dollars per year to spend on our students.
If the students in the MDUSD received the same funding as students in Arkansas, the MDUSD would have an additional $72 million dollars per year to spend on our students.
If the students in the MDUSD received the same funding as the national average for per pupil funding, the MDUSD would have an additional $78 million dollars per year to spend on our students. To me that is the most mind blowing number. The State would have to give our school district an additional $78 million just to get to the national average.
Sacramento is full of politicians who each and every year run on a campaign platform that they are going to change education for the better. In all of my years being involved in politics, I have never seen a politician running for the Legislature or for Governor who didn't say that education was one of their highest priorities.
I really want to understand why California is ranked so low. I looked at the other states relative to California to see if maybe California taxed its citizens less and therefore had fewer dollars to spend on education; that isn't it. I looked at State income tax and State sales tax and among the states that I used for comparison, California ranks #1 with the highest income and sales tax. Even when you look at fuel tax, there are few states who tax their citizens more than California.
On Tuesday February 23, 2010, we will once again meet as a School Board with the citizens of our community and debate a list of items that we must take away from our students because the State continues cut our budget. We will have to ask our already underpaid and overworked employees to sacrifice more. We will discuss lowering academic expectations in hopes that costs will drop as well. We will talk about reducing services to our adult school, a service that serves our retired students and students who are trying to attain new career skills in a down economy. Etc. Etc. Etc. We have already cut millions from our budget and we will have to cut millions more.
So how are we going to change as a state? How are we as parents going to demand that our students be made as high a priority as kids from Arkansas or Montana? How many more empty promises are we as citizens going to take from the politicians who run Sacramento? Does anyone really believe that a high quality solution exists in the system of partisan politics? Does anyone really believe that a solution exists in a political system where people spend millions of dollars to run for a 2 year seat in the California Legislature that pays less than $200,000 per year?
In the short term the only way that our community will be able to restore some of the programs that are being taken away from our kids will be to raise revenues via a bond initiative and or a parcel tax. The state is not going to step in and save our kids, we as a community must.
Longer term, we must drive systemic change statewide. The people must regain control. The citizens of our communities must decide what is best for our children and for our future. It is clear that the politicians can't or won't.
When you talk to the students of our district, they understand the problems pretty well, and they can figure out the solutions. If our students understand the problems and can develop reasonable solutions, why can't our State politicians?
We need real change.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
January 20, 2010 Webcast Community Meeting RECORDED VERSION
Watch live streaming video from mdusd at livestream.com
OUR COMMENTING SYSTEM HAS CHANGED, UNTIL I GET THE KINKS WORKED OUT, I AM SWITCHING TO THE BLOGGER SYSTEM. IF YOU POSTED A COMMENT LAST NIGHT THAT YOU WANT POSTED, PLEASE REPOST ON THE BLOGGER COMMENTS BELOW.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Sunday, December 6, 2009
The State Budget Continues To Be A Disaster
We spent the last few days meeting with School Board Members from all over the State of California trying to figure out how to best deal with the next State budget. The word that we are getting from the State is that the budget shortfall is expected to be $20.7 Billion over the next 18 months. This weekend our Superintendent and fiscal services department are crunching numbers and trying to come up with the amount that we will have to cut and a list of proposed budget reductions that the Board and community can begin to discuss. If the Superintendent and his staff are able to pull it all together by Tuesday December 8th, we will begin to look at the list of proposed reductions at the meeting on Tuesday night. We will not be taking action to make any cuts at the December 8th meeting, it will only be on the agenda for discussion. We will likely begin acting on proposed reductions at the January 12, 2010 meeting.
Our district has already made drastic cuts over the last few years, including million in cuts made in 2009. To give you an idea of cuts that we have already made, here are two links to lists of budget reductions made in June 2009:
June 2, 2009
June 9, 2009
There must be fundamental change in the State of California if school districts are ever going to get out of the cycle of cutting the services that we offer students. Our elected officials constantly indicate that they hold education as their highest priority, yet when times get tough, those same elected officials slash education spending. Every system in the State of California suffers when economic times are as tough as they are right now, but if we as a society fail to maintain our education system, the effects of short term economic downturn will be long term societal failure.
Earlier in 2009 we attempted to pass a $99 parcel tax that would have greatly reduced the necessity to further cut education spending for our students. The measure received 59% approval from voters, but failed to achieve the two-thirds majority necessary for passage. Most school districts that surround the Mt. Diablo district have passed their own parcel taxes and those communities have reduced the need to make reductions during these tough economic times. We must pass a local funding measure in the near term if we want to support our kids and avoid further reductions.
On December 8th we will begin the process of looking at reductions and we need our community to weigh in on the reductions that will be proposed. We also need our community to participate in the process by making other suggestions of areas where you think we may be able to make reductions.
On December 14th there will be a community meeting to discuss action plans on how we are going to move forward as a community to protect services that we provide to our students. A link to the information for that meeting is contained here.
The School Board needs to hear from you on the issue of the budget and solutions that will allow the district to remain solvent. Gary Eberhart, Paul Strange, and Sherry Whitmarsh can all be reached by e-mail at gary@mdusd.net, paul@mdusd.net, and sherry@mdusd.net. Gary can be reached by phone at 925-304-1546 and Paul can be reached at 925-567-3030. Dick Allen and Linda Mayo also have e-mail addresses and those addresses can be found on the district web site. You can also post questions and comments to this blog and we will respond to those questions. Please note that we are looking for actionable suggestions that will be helpful in finding solutions to the problem. We also welcome questions and comments that will further the effort to ensure that the community understands the budgetary issues that the district is dealing with. We continue to also offer to our community our attendance at meetings organized by community members where we will avail ourselves to answer questions about district issues and to discuss solutions to the many challenges that we face.
The governance of the school district is best when the community participates in the process. We encourage and welcome the community into the process. We are mandated by law to submit a balanced budget to the County and we will adhere to that mandate. It will be much better to find solutions to the challenges that we face with our community rather than discussing the solutions that we were forced to act on after the fact. We need input and discussion now, not complaints later.
Per the request of a commenter, here are the e-mail address of Dick Allen and Linda Mayo:
dickallen_dallen@yahoo.com
mayolk@aol.com
Our district has already made drastic cuts over the last few years, including million in cuts made in 2009. To give you an idea of cuts that we have already made, here are two links to lists of budget reductions made in June 2009:
June 2, 2009
June 9, 2009
There must be fundamental change in the State of California if school districts are ever going to get out of the cycle of cutting the services that we offer students. Our elected officials constantly indicate that they hold education as their highest priority, yet when times get tough, those same elected officials slash education spending. Every system in the State of California suffers when economic times are as tough as they are right now, but if we as a society fail to maintain our education system, the effects of short term economic downturn will be long term societal failure.
Earlier in 2009 we attempted to pass a $99 parcel tax that would have greatly reduced the necessity to further cut education spending for our students. The measure received 59% approval from voters, but failed to achieve the two-thirds majority necessary for passage. Most school districts that surround the Mt. Diablo district have passed their own parcel taxes and those communities have reduced the need to make reductions during these tough economic times. We must pass a local funding measure in the near term if we want to support our kids and avoid further reductions.
On December 8th we will begin the process of looking at reductions and we need our community to weigh in on the reductions that will be proposed. We also need our community to participate in the process by making other suggestions of areas where you think we may be able to make reductions.
On December 14th there will be a community meeting to discuss action plans on how we are going to move forward as a community to protect services that we provide to our students. A link to the information for that meeting is contained here.
The School Board needs to hear from you on the issue of the budget and solutions that will allow the district to remain solvent. Gary Eberhart, Paul Strange, and Sherry Whitmarsh can all be reached by e-mail at gary@mdusd.net, paul@mdusd.net, and sherry@mdusd.net. Gary can be reached by phone at 925-304-1546 and Paul can be reached at 925-567-3030. Dick Allen and Linda Mayo also have e-mail addresses and those addresses can be found on the district web site. You can also post questions and comments to this blog and we will respond to those questions. Please note that we are looking for actionable suggestions that will be helpful in finding solutions to the problem. We also welcome questions and comments that will further the effort to ensure that the community understands the budgetary issues that the district is dealing with. We continue to also offer to our community our attendance at meetings organized by community members where we will avail ourselves to answer questions about district issues and to discuss solutions to the many challenges that we face.
The governance of the school district is best when the community participates in the process. We encourage and welcome the community into the process. We are mandated by law to submit a balanced budget to the County and we will adhere to that mandate. It will be much better to find solutions to the challenges that we face with our community rather than discussing the solutions that we were forced to act on after the fact. We need input and discussion now, not complaints later.
Per the request of a commenter, here are the e-mail address of Dick Allen and Linda Mayo:
dickallen_dallen@yahoo.com
mayolk@aol.com
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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