Comments on: School funding: How California stacks up

By: Cranky Teacher

Cranky Teacher — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:22:34 +0000

On salary: Where you live is everything. My 40K would go a LOOOOOOONG way in Utah, Louisiana, etc. In the East Bay? Not so much.

By: Public School Fan

Public School Fan — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:46:45 +0000

At this point, would any of the citizens of Oakland trust that OUSD and the city would appropriately use any money raised by a new parcel tax?

Right now, no one has extra money or even sufficient money — not the state, not OUSD, and not the citizens of Oakland. We already pay excessive amounts of additional parcel taxes. And at this point, many citizens cannot afford to pay more.

Even at the expense of my Oakland public-schooled child, I would not vote for a new parcel tax until I saw some tangible evidence of responsible, responsive spending by OUSD and the city. And I can tell you that $77 million in OUSD spending on outside contractors is not a good place to start in my mind. And, yes, I realize that some of those dollars must be spent in that way on required costs and programs, but some of those dollars needn’t be spent on contractors.

I don’t get the feeling (and I have no faith) that OUSD carefully manages its budget. Even in these days of criminally severe budget cuts.

By: heatman

heatman — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:37:44 +0000

I asked Tony Smith yesterday what he thought the next five years would bring in the funding of public education in Oakland and he responded that he didn’t think it would be good and that Oakland needed to do what it could to improve funding on the local level. There is currently a coalition of community stakeholders looking at a parcel tax for the November ballot. I guess the question remains; what is the proper funding level for OUSD and can that level be reached by increasing local taxation?