Guest blogger Ron Reynolds is executive director of the California Association of Private School Organizations (CAPSO), the California state affiliate of the Council for American Private Education (CAPE). ??CAPSO's twenty-three member organizations provide service to some 1,500 private schools enrolling approximately 80% of California's total K-12 private school population.
Recently, courtesy of The California Channel, I watched Nero fiddle while Rome burned. Far from the Roman Forum, the fiddling took place in a hearing room of the California State Capitol (home to much recent??fiddling), in which the Senate Education Committee was meeting to deliberate a stack of bills.??Among the measures heard was ACR 54 (Brownley), a resolution co-authored by no fewer than forty-six members of the State Assembly wishing to declare the intent of??the Legislature to:
...generate sufficient funds for, and allocate sufficient funds to, education, so as to bring per pupil spending up to or beyond the national average and to a level that accounts for the actual cost of educating California's diverse pupil population so that all pupils are prepared at the end of their elementary and secondary education experiences for college, careers, and successful participation in our democratic institutions.
Unpacking ACR 54's statement of legislative intent brought to mind an item on a test of test-wiseness that might read something like this:
The Rio Bravura Diamond Mines are located at least:
A.?? 200 feet below the surface of the earth
B.?? 400 feet below the surface of the earth
C.?? 800 feet below the surface of the earth
D.?? one mile below the surface of the earth
One need possess little more than a modicum of test-wiseness to conclude that??"A" provides the best response option??to the question, as??all of the remaining alternatives are at least 200 feet below the surface of the earth.
Now that you've got the knack of it, try your hand at answering the following question:
The term 'sufficient funds,' as it appears in ACR 54, means "enough money to bring per pupil funding...:
A.?? ...up to the national average."
B.?? ...beyond the national average."
C.?? ...to a level that covers actual costs."
D.?? ...to a level that assures success for all pupils."
If you answered "D," give yourself a gold star.?? While the other three options possess??objectively quantitative referents, the last item is but a legislative way station on the road to an adequacy lawsuit.
ACR 54's author, Julia Brownley, is a smart, hard working, and well intentioned legislator. As the current chairperson of the Assembly Education Committee, I'm sure it's painful for her to see one bill after another find its way into the Appropriations Committee suspense file (i.e. legislative limbo) for lack of available funding. And I can understand the political considerations attendant to promising everything when you can give nothing.
But Rome is burning. California??is??virtually bankrupt.??Its unemployment rate has eclipsed 11.4 percent, and its Treasury has begun dispensing IOUs. The state's credit rating, already the lowest??of all fifty states, has been reduced to near junk status. Legislators can't agree with one another, or with the Governor about how to address??a mushrooming deficit, now??in excess of $24 billion.
Against this bleak background, even those of us who may be lacking for test-wiseness know that the Legislature is in no position to increase funding for education anytime soon. We'd all be wise to keep in mind that a court order can accomplish that which a hamstrung Legislature can't. I suspect that at least forty-six members of the California State Assembly are at least as wise.