Davis will go into the spring, for the first time in a long time, not talking about layoffs or school cuts. That is the good news, but it was a rough ride last year getting to that point.
The district attempted to avoid further layoffs through employee concessions, but could not get the Davis Teacher’s Association to agree. The result was roughly 50 layoffs.
Unfortunately, by summer, the district had two looming crises. It faced automatic trigger cuts if the voters did not approve the governor’s tax measure – Prop 30. And it faced the expiration of Measure A passed in 2011 as an emergency two-year parcel tax.
Board member Richard Harris decided to forgo his reelection and instead pushed for a parcel tax, Measure E, that would renew Measure A while, at the same time, providing potential funding to the district should Prop 30 not pass.
The district still faced a potential problem. Should Measure E pass but not Prop 30 (a distinct possibility), the district would have faced the loss of funding from January until June when Measure E would begin collecting parcel tax money.
Once again, the district entered into contingency plans should Prop 30 fail – they asked for concessions from the DTA, CSEA (California School Employees Association) and administration – they gained concessions for the two latter groups, but not DTA.
Fortunately for all involved, the crisis and final showdown never came. Despite some early returns that undoubtedly caused some nervousness, in the end both Measure E and Prop 30 passed relatively easily.
As Richard Harris told the Vanguard the morning after the election, by any reasonable measure, 69% is a landslide. We agree and Richard Harris deserves a tremendous amount of credit for pushing the district to act when they would not have, and seeing it through until the end.
Without Mr. Harris’ impetus there would not have been a Measure E on the November ballot. While it may have been true that the district would have come back this spring, we do not know. What we do know is that 24,000 people cast their ballot this time and 69% of those said yes.
With that said, the Vanguard believes that the voters and the taxpayers have done their part and it is now time for some other groups to step forward here.
As Bill Storm, Ingrid Salim and Greg Brucker wrote immediately following the election, “The passage of these measures also removes the specter of imminent labor conflict between DJUSD and the Davis Teachers Association.”
They add, “This conflict has been ill-conceived and entirely unnecessary, bringing this system so highly treasured by Davis citizens to the edge of labor warfare because the State of California cannot see fit to put its schools on a decent financial foundation. Inflammatory rhetoric, half-truths and divisive communication has characterized the communication style of past DTA leadership, establishing a path of certain conflict which would have led to a strike next spring had Prop. 30 and Measure E not been approved. It also put in place an extremely unhealthy foundation for negotiations over contract renewal in Spring of 2013.”
It is clear that there is a problem within the leadership of DTA. These are good and well-meaning people, but at the same time, they are not realistic about the budget structure in Davis.
Meanwhile, at the state level, Democrats, now with super-majorities in Assembly and Senate, are looking into reforming the parcel tax system.
Democrats are looking into placing a constitutional amendment on the ballot making it easier for school districts and county education offices to raise taxes.
Currently, parcel taxes for elections require a two-thirds vote, but only 55 percent support for school bonds which go for facility improvement but not classroom operating expenses.
One bill sponsored by Senator Mark Leno would reduce the threshold for parcel taxes to 55 percent. While on the surface that might not appear to affect DJUSD, which has now passed five parcel taxes at 67 percent or higher support since 2007, it could.
Then again, argues columnist Tom Elias, the parcel tax is probably the least fair of all taxes. Because of Prop 13 and the Serrano v. Priest court decision, the parcel tax is the only way that local districts can pass a local tax that allows the money they produce to stay locally.
“Why are parcel taxes unfair?” Mr. Elias asks. “Because they have nothing to do with the value or use of any particular property. Parcel taxes assess owners an identical sum for each property they possess. That means the tax on a small one- or two-bedroom cottage is identical to the levy on a luxury hotel or a large shopping mall. The owner of a 33,000-square-foot mansion pays the same as the owner of a property one-twentieth as large.”
This is the point that parcel tax opponents have repeatedly made without gaining much traction. The reason is that school districts will really have no other choice.
Mr. Elias argues that while “there’s little doubt about the need,” the “need for a public service does not justify an unfair, inequitable method of taxation like parcel taxes. To be fair, any levy on property must take value and uses into account; parcel taxes do not.”
Mr. Elias also notes that until the Democrats won two-thirds majorities in both houses, “it was impossible to get these proposals onto the ballot because of unified opposition from Republicans.”
That calculus has changed. All it takes now is a majority vote of the voters to approve lower thresholds.
He notes, “If the public believes all these types of services need more money, there are other ways to raise it, methods that are far more fair.”
What he does not make reference to, however, is what the legislature can do or the political realities that the Democrats face. The Democrats know that the best way to ensure that they lose their two-thirds majority is to use that power to raise taxes. So they will do so only sparingly.
That means that while they might allow the voters to lower the threshold on parcel taxes, they are going to be reluctant to fund other tax-based funding mechanisms for education.
The result is that education in California will remain on the boom-bust model – with money available during good times drying up during down times.
The district seems poised now to ride out the rest of the economic downturn. The economy, barring the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling crisis, seems poised to finally, if slowly, improve.
The district needs to focus on critical issues like the achievement gap that have been, if not ignored, put on the backburner during the all-encompassing focus on funding and budgets of the last six years.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Fiscal cliff/sequestration issues may result in cutbacks to federally funded programs, such as Title I, Free/reduced lunch, and special ed.
Free/reduced lunch needs to be cutback, there are too many cheating that system.
rusty49: [i]Free/reduced lunch needs to be cutback, there are too many cheating that system.[/i]
How do you know who’s cheating?
Here’s just one of many articles on the cheating:
[url]http://educationnext.org/fraud-in-the-lunchroom/[/url]
rusty: now go back and read the first comment on that article.
rusty: Would have loved to see an article that went into a little more depth. First, free/reduced lunch does serve children of families who are a little above the poverty level. The childhood poverty level shows decline through to about 2006; what about the childhood poverty level through to 2012? News says that it’s increased over that time. I remember that fact being used as an argument for voting against Obama.
But the correlation argument as presented is very weak when you examine eligibility rules. If we accept that childhood poverty rates have decreased over the time indicated, does this mean that the number of children living between 131 and 185 percent of poverty level should also have shrunk proportionally? That argument isn’t clear. Students living at those levels also are eligible for free/reduced lunch.
[img]http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1243&dat=19800604&id=1yZYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3PYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4563,1085818[/img]
I can keep the articles coming for days. The program is ripe with fraud.
[url]http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1243&dat=19800604&id=1yZYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3PYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4563,1085818[/url]
[url]http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-13/news/ct-met-cps-lunch-fraud-20120113_1_free-lunches-reduced-price-lunches-lunch-applications[/url]
Do you want more? Somehow I have a feeling you won’t bother to see the truth through those rose colored glasses.
Re: 12/28/12 – 01:37 PM: An article from 1980? When Reagan was president? Surely he corrected that.
My take on free school lunches: Yes, sadly, for great numbers of children, they are very important ([url]http://lexicondaily.blogspot.com/[/url]). We must provide them.
These kids come from homes where, in most cases*, their parents made bad choices in life which culminated in them either being unable or unwilling to feed their kids. Without free school lunches and food stamps, these innocent children would be harmed, and perhaps that malnutrition would negatively affect them for the rest of their lives.
The bigger question is [i]what are we doing[/i] as a society to discourage at-risk young people (mostly under age 25) from bearing children before they are prepared to provide a stable, safe and fiscally secure home life for themselves, let alone dependents?
What liberals rarely point out–almost as if they think this is the fault of someone else, perhaps the fault of dreaded corporations?–is that the reason we have so much child poverty in the United States is because low-income mothers (invariably unmarried) have fertility rates which are many times greater than middle- and high-income women. Kids are not growing up in poverty by accident. This is the result of poor moms popping them out.
It seems to me that, with the exception of making birth control much more widely available than it once was (and this is a very, very good thing), we are doing too little. As I have written in my Enterprise column, I would favor giving a lot of cash to any young woman** who comes from difficult circumstances (such as being raised in poverty or having a parent with addiction problems or having a parent in prison) who waits until she is at least 21 years old and married for 1 year to her baby’s father or until she is at least 25 years old to have her first child.
How much cash? About $50,000. That sounds like a lot of money. It would clearly make life a lot better (or at least give a young woman who gets that money a chance to make her life a lot better) for those who receive it. We now spend about that much for one year for an adult in prison. We spend tens of thousands of dollars per year per poor child in welfare and police services. If a 15-year-old impoverished girl who otherwise would have had 5 children by the age of 25 waited a decade to finish her education, get married and then start a family, we would save hundreds of thousands of dollars in societal expenses. And the child she later have would have a much better chance in life.
*Obviously there are exceptional circumstances which drive people into poverty (illness and or death of a parent, for example).
**We could make the same kind of payments to young males who wait to father children. The main reason I think an incentive should be focused on females is because, obviously, they are the ones who get pregnant, and because, sadly, they almost always have to raise the child without its father.
Added note from research on why high-risk mothers have higher birth rates: [quote]Recent analyses of data from the National Survey of Family Growth ([url]http://www.prb.org/Articles/2012/us-teen-birthrate-income.aspx[/url]) suggest that teenage girls of lower socioeconomic status, in regions of high income inequality, are far more likely to “keep their baby.” Teenagers of higher socioeconomic status—with college-educated mothers—and in regions with less income inequality have lower birth rates. … On teenage childbearing, Kearny and Levine argue that “when a poor young woman perceives that socioeconomic success is not achievable to her, she is more likely to embrace motherhood in her current position … When there is relatively more hope of economic advancement, it is relatively more desirable to delay motherhood and invest in human or social capital.” … Results clearly suggest that women of low socioeconomic status, whose mothers dropped out of high school, are more likely to give birth as a single teen if they live in a region of high income inequality. Interestingly, teens of high socioeconomic status are not necessarily less likely to get pregnant, but are more likely to experience a “pregnancy failure,” typically meaning abortion.”[/quote]
Federal anti-fraud efforts: [url]http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-03-07/news/ct-met-school-lunch-fraud-0308-20120308_1_lunch-program-school-lunch-free-lunches[/url]
Note that this federal action appears to be in direct response to the Chicago Tribune news story rusty linked at 01:41 PM
[i]”An article from 1980? When Reagan was president?”[/i]
What was Ronald Reagan the president of in 1980? It was not until January 20, 1981 ([url]http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1981/12081a.htm[/url]) that Mr. Reagan was inaugurated as POTUS.
RR: [i]”And the child she ______ later have would have a much better chance in life.”[/i]
I need to fix that sentence: And the child she [b]would[/b] later have would have a much better chance in life.
Fixed.
[i]”It was not until January 20, 1981 that Mr. Reagan was inaugurated as POTUS.”
[/i]
Right you are. And he then had eight years to correct the fraud and waste in the federal government, an issue which was always front and center in his campaigns.
Rifkin: [i]It seems to me that, with the exception of making birth control much more widely available than it once was (and this is a very, very good thing), we are doing too little. As I have written in my Enterprise column, I would favor giving a lot of cash to any young woman** who comes from difficult circumstances…[/i]
I suggest that a more thorough sex ed. curriculum in the public schools would be an additional improvement. What I have in mind as “more thorough” accepts that homosexuality is natural, that specifically addresses outercourse ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outercourse[/url]) as an alternative to intercourse, and would also extend into aspects of home economics, such as family budgeting that includes evaluating the cost of raising a baby, and, ideally, the practical experience of changing a poopy diaper, and possibly getting a baby to sleep on schedule.
The subject of outercourse, in my view, would not necessarily have to cover all of the varieties discussed in the wiki article I link to, but just enough to get across the idea that “having sex” doesn’t always and automatically mean intercourse.
I know this curriculum would always be contentious for a certain segment of the population, but no more contentious, I think, than your proposal of fronting reward money.
While he’s at it, I guess he’ll have them ask everyone they encounter to produce a legally acceptable birth certificate (meaning anything from Hawaii will be unacceptable):
Arizona sheriff orders armed ‘posse’ to patrol schools ([url]http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/28/16215255-arizona-sheriff-orders-armed-posse-to-patrol-schools?lite[/url])
[i]”I suggest that a more thorough sex ed. curriculum in the public schools would be an additional improvement.”[/i]
Agreed.
An interesting fact is that teen pregnancy rates have been falling nationwide and among all racial/ethnic groups for about a decade–I think this is mostly due to more available and better birth control–with the exception of those very conservative areas which preach “abstinence” sex ed. In those places, teen birth rates are the highest and have not fallen.
[i]”What I have in mind as ‘more thorough’ accepts that homosexuality is natural (for those who have that biological orientation) …”[/i]
Not that I disagree, but I don’t think teaching that affects the birth rate one way or the other among those would be parents who are not ready to provide a nurturing home for their children.
[i]” … that specifically addresses outercourse as an alternative to intercourse …”[/i]
You will probably enjoy this song ([url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0Qxg1Ixrsg[/url]) (warning: crude) which my friend, Kevin Hench, wrote. Unfortunately, the audio is ruined a bit by overtalk.
Rifkin: [i]Not that I disagree, but I don’t think teaching that affects the birth rate one way or the other…[/i]
I agree with you, here. But I include that component because it has been a shortcoming of sex ed. in the past. Including it, I think, would reduce some bullying, adolescent anxieties, and maybe suicides.
Rifkin: [i]…with the exception of those very conservative areas which preach “abstinence” sex ed.[/i]
Outcourse meets a certain definition of abstinence. But if one defines abstinence as avoiding any form of sexual pleasure outside of marriage, then it is a non-starter. But the latter position is also unrealistic, because ultimately you have to prohibit “gateway sexual activity” ([url]http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/412838/april-18-2012/the-word—gateway-hug[/url]), such as hand-holding, kissing, hugging, and eye contact. But they have discussed such prohibitions in Tennessee. We can wait and watch what happens.
Wdf1:
These are all great ideas. But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for this to happen, though, because I think implementing these in schools–even in the more moderate and liberal areas–would face major objections from the religious right.
While outercourse does meet certain definitions of abstinence, to promote this in the schools as an alternative to sex would be (to the religious right) tantamount to de-coupling morality from sex, and naturalizing it as something to be enjoyed outside the bounds of proper marriage.
The right believes that a stronger Christian influence will reduce unwanted and single mother pregnancy.
The left believe that more sex-ed will reduce unwanted and single mother pregnancy.
I don’t know, but it seems logical to me that both would have some positive impacts.
however:
[quote]There are large differences by race and Hispanic origin in the share of births to unmarried women, with non-Hispanic white women and Asian or Pacific Islander women much less likely than women in other groups to have a nonmarital birth. In 2011 (preliminary estimates), 72 percent of all births to black women, 66 percent to American Indian or Alaskan native women, and 53 percent to Hispanic women occurred outside of marriage, compared with 29 percent for white women, and 17 percent for Asian or Pacific Islander women.[/quote]
So, if we really want to solve the problem, we would find ways to increase the number of whites and Asians and decrease blacks and Hispanics.
But seriously (because I wasn’t)… I think we are barking up the wrong tree. The correlation, as Rich points out, is economic. So, the best way to reduce unwanted unmarried birth is to lift the economic circumstances of low income people… the socio-economic group that black and Hispanic people are over-represented in. How do we do that? Completely reform and change the education system so that we significantly improve education outcomes and reduce dropout rates for the kids in these groups, and implement government economic policies that get the US back to healthy economic growth.
Religion and sex-ed are not going to get the job done. Apparently, neither is Barack Obama and Jerry Brown.