Comments on: Adults sure are scarce in CA schools

By: Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:55:27 +0000

I agree completely with Cranky. California school funding must be increased, but there are also changes we could make that would allow for wiser expenditures of whatever money schools have. Often schools are forced to spend funds by a deadline (often April 30) or lose them completely. Most funds that are unused cannot be carried over into the new year. In the press to spend money before the deadline, bad decisions can be made.
I was in charge of placing orders for my school for several years before my retirement, and I know we made several expensive errors. For example, on two occasions we bought expensive supplementary materials for teachers who ended up leaving us during the summer, and no other teachers have been interested in using them. (Schools are always short of money in September, so it is hard to wait to buy materials until you know exactly what you will need.) We have bought computer equipment that we probably would not have purchased if we had taken more time to investigate the alternatives. We have spent funds on a consultant when we would have rather saved the money for the next year to be able to afford another employee, but the deadline would not allow this.
When we have had funds that allowed for carry-over, such as the High Priority School Grant (HPSG) and the Quality Education Investment Act grant (QEIA), we were able to use our money more effectively. Eliminating the use-it or lose-it rule for school funds would reduce waste.

By: Cranky Teacher

Cranky Teacher — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:56:40 +0000

Faced with clear evidence of how terribly underfunded California schools are (44th out of 50 in the richest, most expensive state in the union), both J.R. and Chauncey mindlessly restate their talking points that the money is all being misspent.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 06:41:12 +0000

“After 1977-78, California’s K-12 Schools Received a Larger Share of Funds From the State and a Smaller Share From Local Property Tax Revenues.” See figures 5 and 6 in the linked CBP report. This illustrates the unintended consequences of Serrano v Priest. Other states may be more generous with their schools, though note that there is much more local control of the budget in many other states.

By: J.R.

J.R. — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 19:27:37 +0000

Chauncy,
Don’t believe what you see,hear or experience, huge amounts of tax money are not wasted, and graft,corruption,laziness and incompetence do not exist in the education sector, and all but a minimal amount of money reaches the children in the classroom. As a matter of fact we need to tax people more, because these educrats are way underpaid, didn’t you know that?

sarcasm off

By: Chauncey

Chauncey — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:35:59 +0000

…and still school administration, borad members and such can overspend, misspend, and ” grease palms” as a Board member implied.

More money means more pork fat and grease, and this my friends is a health risk. Us Black folks know all too well!

By: amhale

amhale — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:50:55 +0000

I read somewhere that in CA the standard ratio for counselors to students is 1/900 — which is just absurd. With those kinds of numbers, no real counseling goes on — it is just printing our schedules and putting out fires. When everyone talks about how bad teachers are the problem, does anyone look at the impact of having inadequate administrative staff? When there aren’t enough administrators (or enough good administrators) then teachers don’t feel supported and they leave — I think that happened at my daughters’ middle school.

I assume the librarian figure doesn’t take into account librarians who are paid by PTAs. Why have we decided that school librarians are a luxury only available to those who could afford it? Again, does anyone factor that in when looking at why schools do or don’t succeed?