Administrators and teachers at Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo High School in West Long Beach must have been flabbergasted on Saturday during the impromptu celebrity photo op on their campus.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was there to deliver financial news that is mildly refreshing for K-12 public education systems, but doesn’t bode well for the state’s public university systems.
During the news conference — we assume he wasn’t smoking his trademark stogie because tobacco use on any Long Beach K-12 campus is illegal — the governor announced the federal government’s release of $3.1 billion in stimulus dollars for education.
Of the $3.1 billion, approximately $2.6 billion will go to K-12 education, hopefully pulling back some of the estimated 20,000-plus pink slips that have been landing in teacher mailboxes statewide during the past month.
The Los Angeles Board of Education voted last week to paper 5,000 employees, including teachers, custodians, clerks, administrators and counselors, according to the Los Angeles Times. The county was facing a nearly $600 million shortfall.
The stimulus package falls short of meeting education’s needs and the community college and university systems will be hit extra hard. Only $537 million is headed to public universities. As all players get on their marks for the mad dash for cash, the California State University system will likely be limping away at the finish line.
The CSU is currently “$600 million below its operational needs for its 2009-2010 budget,” CSU spokeswoman Clara Potes-Fellow told the L.A. Times following the “Educ-Hater’s” dog-and-pony show at Cabrillo.
That quote was later corrected by the L.A. Times to explain the $6oo million is a two-year budget deficit for 2008-2010, as if there’s much difference. When you’re at the bottom of a deep pit, a lack of oxygen and daylight doesn’t really matter much if the pit is 10 feet deep or 11 feet deep.
A hole is a hole and we’re in a deep one.
The CSU chunk of the tiny pie, estimated to be approximately $268 million, is like offering a spoon instead of a backhoe. Chancellor Charles Reed, attending the press conference with his University of California counterpart President Mark Yudof, mindlessly applauded the university package.
Unfortunately, Reed didn’t provide details of how the money would be spent, whether to pay administrative bonuses — as national bank executives did with federal bailout money — or to protect faculty and employees from being cut.
A current legislative bill by Anthony Pratantino, Chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, aims to freeze pay of California state employees, including Reed, who make more than $150,000 per year, but that could be the tail wagging the dog if the stimulus funds are left in Reed’s hands.
Even with the pittance from the feds, the CSU Board of Trustees is expected to hit students with a 10 percent fee increase at next month’s meeting. The stimulus money won’t solve issues like opening the doors for the 10,000 students being turned away next year.
It won’t hold back the tide of cutting class offerings and it won’t return the funding Schwarzenegger stripped the CSU of when he reneged on the Higher Education Compact of 2004.
The real pisser is that Schwarzenegger “acted” like he actually did something for our state during his announcement.
“We all know that schools are hurting, teachers are receiving pink slips and universities are turning students away,” Schwarzenegger told the media. “My mission is to shield our kids from the full brunt of the economic crisis.” Well, duh.
How about shielding us college students as well, Educ-Hater? Rather than merely grubbing for chump change, how about providing some real — as previously promised — relief to our university systems, instead of gloating in front of the cameras about a job weakly done?
Jerks in triplicate!!!