I had the occasion to spend Friday morning at RCOE along with the other superintendents and CBOs in Riverside County listening to Ron Bennett, President & CEO, of School Services of California. Typically, Ron and SSC are regarded as the experts in education financing in California. Ron stated what has been pretty much the message from across the state – the Governor’s January budget, while not good – is probably as good as it gets. As Ron stated, “California would like to meet its obligations, but it can’t.”
Probably the most interesting and illustrative comment that Ron made was based on his long history with funding of public education in California. Ron recalled in the days of Governor George Deukmejian when we had a situation somewhat similar to this, educational spending was dreadful. We were spending at $3,500 per student and prisoners were costing the state twice that at $7,000. The most striking part of his statistics is that we are currently receiving $5,014 per student (statewide average) and the cost of incarceration is in excess of $52,000 per prisoner (over 10 times that of educational funding). Solving the problems in California may have something to do with priorities.
Those are incredible facts and definitely difficult to swallow. Thank you for the information. Time for another phone call.
ReplyDeleteIf there is 50 billion or so being spent on Education and 5.8 million students, that is 8,600 per student where is the other 3,586 dollars (or 20.7 billion) going to????
ReplyDelete