COMMENTARIES

Budget Cuts' Impact on Children (2002)

California's Legislative Graveyard for Children (2001)

Turning Our Backs On Our Children (2000)

The Road Not Taken - Our Children (1999)

Capacity of Colleges is Getting Short Shrift (1999)

What We're Not Getting from 'the Education Governor' (1999)

Perspective on Health (1999)

Book Review: "The Structure of Liberty" (1998)

High School Shoot 'Em Ups and Government by Anecdote (1998)

The Budget Battle: Don't Break the Education Chain for our Children (1998)

Foster Children Deserve Better (1998)

Mediagate Enters its Third Week (1998)

A Welfare Reform Quiz (1997)

The Television Rating System: TV Executives Just Don't Get it (1997)

The Bottom Line: The Governor's Welfare Reform Proposal (1997)

Somebody Else's Children (1997)

Public Disinvestment In Children: The Hidden Story of Private Abandonment (1997)

California's Children Reach a Fork in the Road (1997)

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The San Diego Union-Tribune published this commentary on July 31, 2002.

Who pays for the California budget cuts?

Our children.

by Robert C. Fellmeth

The debate on the California budget for the next fiscal year is over relatively small matters -- with the Legislature seeking to restore minor social service spending and Republicans objecting to any rollback of recent tax cuts regardless of need or consequence. Whatever the outcome of the debate California's children will suffer the largest cut -- both in amount and in percentage -- since the emergency budgets of the Great Depression. And few are talking about it.

The cut in the governor's final budget proposal of May is actually an $11.6 billion disinvestment in children. Almost all of the rest of the $23.6 billion budget shortfall is to be made up in accounting tricks and in borrowing from future monies for children -- assuring that these cuts are not likely to be rectified in 2003 or 2004.

Ironically, the lack of leadership of our public officials is not mirrored by the electorate. According to a recent poll, 61 percent will pay more in taxes for indigent health care, and the percentage for child education investment is even higher.

In contrast, the governor would add minimal new revenue -- 50 cents a package to cigarettes and a partial reinstatement of the vehicle license fee reduction -- that fee would remain 25 percent lower than its pre-1999 level.

The only real additional tax is the cigarette money, which amounts to 2 percent of the shortfall being visited on child investment ($11.6 billion), plus future obligation ($11.1 billion) to come from them down the road. Nevertheless, when this regrettable budget was proposed on May 15, the headlines in all five newspaper markets bafflingly screamed, "Governor Proposes New Taxes." Give me a break!

Our children are not living in splendor. Over 2.5 million of them live below the poverty line, with monthly family incomes in the $1,000 to $1,300 range. Safety net support (TANF -- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and food stamps combined) has been cut to a record low of 70 percent of that line. Over 600,000 of our children face serious cuts to below one-half of the poverty line as federal 60-month lifetime welfare limits kick in for their parents over the next two to three years.

Hunger among some child populations is growing alarmingly. Foster care children - literally the children of the state -- continue to be subject to "foster care drift" -- moved from place to place without a permanent parent and are still largely thrown onto the streets at 18 years of age.

Over 1 million California kids qualified for medical coverage do not have it, despite federal money at a 2-to-1 match. Public school class size reduction -- started by former Gov. Pete Wilson for grades kindergarten through third five years ago -- has not been extended to other grades, and the state has now sunk to last place in classroom size again. High school standard test scores are abysmal. Child care help is available for just over one-fifth of the working poor demand.

Higher education slots (capacity) have not increased beyond population growth from 1990 -- at a time when the future of our children demands that a much larger percentage get higher or technical training for their employment in the international labor market.

From this dismal base, the reductions are many and they are momentous. Over 30 major investments in children are terminated. Another dozen are deferred -- perhaps indefinitely. Almost all new federal money for children is diverted ("supplanted") to reduce state general fund obligation.

The future borrowing of $11.1 billion includes the expropriation of the tobacco settlement money due the state over the next 22 years and intended for smoking prevention, de-addiction and health. It will instead secure a $4.5 billion bond for one-year general fund relief. Except that it will cost $7.9 billion with the interest it will compel.

What is the alternative?

Well, we can stop spending money on $1,000 awards for every kid scoring in the top 10 percent on statewide tests, among other things. But in terms of overall investment, if we take the same percentage of personal income our parents invested in many of us 25 years ago and applied it to the estimated personal income of Californians in 2002-03, we would have $12.4 billion more money expended for children than the budget proposes or will spend as approved.

That legislative Republicans are "standing firm on the principle of no new taxes" indicates that their leadership of our most self-indulgent baby boomers is secure. Ironically, when Gov. Pete Wilson faced a similar problem a decade ago, he approved the coverage of most of the deficit from new taxes. That was not a conservative or liberal decision, it was a decision for our children, and thoughtful Republicans supported it then, and support it now.

The new state tax breaks enacted after 1998 will cost us $5.7 billion next year. This is why our tax base is being shredded, and we are avoiding our obligation to invest in our children. Why don't we suspend those for two years, rather than spending for children?

The federal tax reductions of 2001 are even more extensive and extend to 2011. California's adults will be getting an average of about $27 billion annually. Could we share half of that with our children?

Does it matter that much of that $27 billion benefit will now come from future child investment because the surplus is shrinking? Does it matter that our total defense budget is $390 billion for 2003, with the next largest defense budget in the world (Russia's) at $60 billion? That we just reinstated enormous price supports for farmers?

We celebrated a wonderful event earlier this month -- the 226th birthday of our nation -- visionaries such as Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Washington ... wealthy men who risked all -- for those who followed them.

As we continue to pay homage to them, we might consider our performance on behalf of those who follow us.

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The Sacramento Bee published this commentary on October 8, 2000.

California's Legislative Graveyard for Children

by Robert C. Fellmeth

The California Legislature has long had what is called a "suspense" file in each of its appropriations committees, a place where spending bills wait until they can be considered. The governor and Democratic committee chairmen have now turned that file into a killing ground for meritorious bills, a graveyard that allows legislators to avoid a public negative vote and the governor to avoid a public veto.

It works like this: By rule, all fiscal bills costing over $150,000 are automatically diverted by the appropriations committee of each house to suspense status before a final floor vote. Everything in this file then expires at the session's end unless it is affirmatively released for a vote. Any bill not pulled for vote simply dies without any member having to vote against it.

When bills pass the Legislature, the governor has 30 days to affirmatively and publicly veto them. They become law unless he does so. But with a cooperative Legislature (as when the same party controls both branches), the suspense file procedure allows the governor to veto privately. Through his Department of Finance, he tells the Legislature which bills he wants, and the others die silently. Although approved or favored by the vast majority of legislators, these bills simply disappear into a void, a legislative Gulag.

One group of important bills terminated this way during the 1999-2000 legislative session were a series of important measures to help impoverished children. No fewer than 20 such bills met this fate, many in the final few days of the session. The biggest beating was suffered by abused children in the foster care system.

Take SB 949. Over 110,000 California children are in foster care -- these are abused or neglected children who have been removed from their homes and now suffer the state as their parent. The best hope for many is adoption. That usually occurs through family foster care providers (who adopt about three-quarters of foster children who are adopted).

But the supply of these providers has not increased markedly in a decade, while the number of foster care kids has ballooned. So increasing numbers of kids are assigned to the more impersonal group homes, or left with marginal Uncle Ned. And they are moved from place to place, separated from siblings, and otherwise abused in countless ways.

SB 949 would have increased compensation for family foster care modestly, strengthened state efforts to recruit quality foster parents and created a system for advanced foster parent training and certification. And it would have outlawed the common designation of any child as "unadoptable" and made other improvements.

The cost? Here is the kicker. The compensation of family foster care providers -- who have had little historical lobbying power at the Capitol -- has increased at less than one-half the rate of inflation since 1991; their compensation is well below the out-of-pocket cost of the children they care for. But the group home providers -- who do have lobbyists -- receive $3,000 to $5,000 per month per child, about 10 times as much as family foster care providers receive.

The bill would not only have helped children -- it would have saved money.

Last year marked the third year of effort by child advocates to enact most of the terms of SB 949. In 1999, the bill passed through the Senate policy committee, but was kept in the Senate Appropriations suspense file. It was moved out of suspense in January 2000 as a top priority of its author, Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Daly City) and was passed by the Senate and an Assembly policy committee. The bill received a grand total of one no vote through its 18-month travail. Then it died again last month, this time in the Assembly Appropriation Committee's suspense trap. The bill had no serious opposition; even the counties and the state's own Department of Social Services realized its merit.

The end of the two-year session having passed, any new effort must start back at step one, and likely awaits the same fate. Does some reason, some explanation, some flaw explain its loss? No. Nobody will tell us who made the decision or why.

SB 949 is not alone. Although Gov. Gray Davis publicly vetoed three foster care bills supported by strong majorities, the suspense file arrangement allowed him to terminate with prejudice 20 additional bills affecting children. Of the 20, 17 had passed through one house and two policy committees, and almost all had bipartisan support.

Some bills get pulled from suspense for a public aye vote. So how are they selected? Three primary criteria emerge for Lazarus status: 1) they generate gratitude among large voting blocks (e.g., large sums given rather indiscriminately to all teachers or to all students who score high on tests, regardless of need); 2) they guarantee a media splash; and 3) they generate campaign money in a state now lacking any campaign contribution limits whatever for statewide or legislative office.

The 20 measures terminated do not represent utopian advances. The more visionary investments needed are squelched early on by the current administration's irrational "do-not-add-to-the-budget-base" mantra. Real investment -- needed to prevent unwed births and discourage adult reproductive irresponsibility, lower class sizes in grades 4 to 12, provide an earned income tax credit so poor parents have a chance to rise above poverty, locate quality child care where the working poor are, medically cover our kids and avoid sending $2 billion back to Washington and increase higher education capacity so kids have a chance at future jobs -- has not been funded meaningfully despite record budget surpluses. (More scholarship money is welcome, but is of limited help without a large increase in slots and graduation rates.)

Other measures not squelched early on are often watered down to little more than a press release opportunity for its author. And now, as a last barrier for surviving legislative salmon to leap, we have the quiet, lethal suspense file trap, with 20 victims ensnared this year. They were not extreme measures, not as ambitious as the more costly investments listed above, but they mattered to the least among us, to hundreds of thousands of abused children whose interests are not ascendant outside of the usual de rigeur child-kissing rhetoric.

In the current realpolitik these children live in a world of dependency court secrecy, out of sight. The media, already impeded from covering their plight, now have no event handle to report the silent termination of modest public efforts to help them. We have a state led by Democrats who do not believe in democratic values, which must start with public business conducted by public vote. We have a governor and Legislature that properly demand public accountability from our schools, and then use a rigged system to avoid it for themselves.

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The San Diego Union-Tribune published this commentary on August 6, 2000.

Turning Our Backs On Our Children

by Robert C. Fellmeth

Your company's fiscal year is ending, and your division has an unexpected $5,000 balance. You can't hire anyone, but you don't want the money "going back to corporate." So you make the traditional "one-time-only" purchase of two new computers.

This familiar micro-dilemma is now being extended in California as the prime directive guiding public investment. The mantra emanating from Gov. Gray Davis is: "don't add to the base."

The "don't add" approach, understandable at the office level, does not work as state budget policy. Nevertheless, over $7 billion of the $12 billion in surplus funds invested in 2000-2001 are going to "one-time" expenditures. The preoccupation with this simplism shortchanges our children and squanders available resources on spending without long-term vision or commitment.

States cannot print money and deficit finance as Washington does. So political leaders understandably fear economic downturn, with the unpleasant choice of raising taxes or cutting back existing programs. But before we route our $12 billion surplus away from the "base," we should consider the following:

First, even with some downturn, most of the $12 billion will not disappear; it represents genuine growth, not an isolated act of God.

Second, the "base" actually should expand automatically by population growth and inflation every year - just to hold even. Failure to add that much reduces the real spending base.

Third, if the 2000-2001 "spending base" for children were at the same percentage of adult income invested one generation ago, we would be spending $9 billion more on our kids, and adding it to the base. That was the commitment of our parents to us, and theirs to them, a commitment that produced the finest schools in the land, from preschool to university level.

The difference is largely the result of 20 years of tax loopholes that have accumulated to shred the state's general fund upon which children rely. These loopholes now total a record $32 billion per year. Why don't our state officials view tax breaks as "adding to the base?" These breaks are sought acquisitively by the Capitol's 1,600 registered lobbyists. They need not be approved each year but continue automatically every year; and in California (unlike most states) a two-thirds vote is required to end or lessen them. They constitute a cumulative, continuing subtraction from our children's future public revenue base.

This neglected side of the coin - the future "revenue base" - can feed the spending base only if the citizens of the future are healthy, and can read, write and obtain contributing jobs. The children of today constitute that future revenue base. And investing in them doesn't just create contributors, it lessens future costs as well. For example, California has gone from 19,000 adult prisoners in 1977 to 162,000 today - an eightfold increase in a generation. The failure to invest in children can add to that future, continuing spending obligation.

The spending (investment base) expansion must be directed first and foremost at the developing intractable underclass of impoverished children projecting to one-third of our future population, at the very time the upper 10 percent are achieving unprecedented wealth. We are headed for a society of Third-World disparities inimical to democratic values. While the California Children's Budget 2000-2001, a 650-page study of condition indicators, public investments and sums invested in California children recommends a$12 billion Child Advancement Fund, the new state budget adopts less than 10 percent of it.

California's 2000-2001 budget spends new funds on school teacher development, and on incentives to enhance low scoring school performance. But the major investments we are not making include the following:

A public campaign on the right of a child simply to be intended by two adults committed to him or her, with reduction in unwed birth rates and paternal responsibility restoration the No. 1 priorities of any responsible child advocates familiar with the data.

Class-size reduction for grades 4 through 12; the 1998 and 1999 test results indicate the K-3 reductions are accomplishing significant gains. But despite this evidence, we remain 49th in the nation in class size and our high school reading scores at near the very bottom of the nation.

A state earned income tax credit of 30 percent of the federal EITC will allow working poor parents to pay California's higher rents and remove a current barrier to true self-sufficiency.

A seamless system of quality child care for the working poor, with subsidy declining on a sliding scale as income increases and children age.

Higher education opportunity expansion is critical. A higher proportion of our kids must get advanced training because our job niche in the future is not on assembly lines. But we are sending a lower proportion of our youth to advanced education than we did in 1990.

These investments will "add to the base," representing a long-term commitment, one properly made in a planned, determined, steady manner. It will take years for each to reach fruition, and we are not seriously beginning them.

We need to demand more of our public officials, that they match the precedent of our forbears, who sacrificed more for us from the much less they had. Their investment has created the considerable wealth we enjoy.

Our grandparents were more generous with their enemies after World War II than today's adults are with their own children.

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The Sacramento Bee published this commentary on October 3, 1999, and the Press-Enterprise published this commentary on October 10, 1999.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN - OUR CHILDREN

by Robert C. Fellmeth

How much do we love ourselves more than our children in need? Over the last 25 years our adult generation has been in power, let us count the ways.

1. We know the median income of an unwed mother with children is 20% below the poverty line, while the income of a married couple with children is above $40,000. However, unwed birth rates have gone from 8% to 32% during our generation, and it's not the teen pregnancies politicians love to condemn-80% of unwed births are to adult women.

2. Men are leading the "me first" parade, impregnating with abandon, and then averaging $23 per month per child in support payments for the 4 million California children they have abandoned.

This private irresponsibility-largely ignored or excused by political liberals-has been joined by public disinvestment-largely arranged by political conservatives. Together, they have accomplished a contract on America's children: Children do not have a right to be intended by a married couple: Adult sexual rights categorically supersede, and we are not going to support the unintended children of others.

3. We enact a property tax system which assesses new homeowners (young adults and our children growing up) five, six, even ten times the taxes demanded of long-time (older) homeowners to pay for the same governmental services. Together with the land inflation we have encouraged, this makes home ownership problematical for many of our families with children.

4. Our poorest children live in households paying a higher total state and local tax rate on income - largely due to high sales taxes - than the upper 20% of earners (who are disproportionately older).

5. We provide guaranteed medical care to every single senior citizen, but continue to leave 20% of our children totally uncovered and without preventive care, although they have three times the poverty rate of our seniors (us baby boomers in a few years) and cost one-fifth as much to insure.

6. We enact Proposition 98 so that a minimum percentage of our state's general fund goes to public education. We congratulate ourselves, and then our public officials make the minimum into a maximum, leaving California in the bottom third of the nation in school spending per child.

7. Notwithstanding a general tax increase in 1991, we otherwise enact twelve straight years of tax cuts and deductions for middle class and wealthy adults, while raising taxes on poorchildren (for example, reducing the renter's tax credit by more than 2/3 and excluding all those near or below the poverty line from any benefit). California's general fund, which supports education and child investment generally, sits on a tax base that looks increasingly like Swiss cheese, but it takes an affirmative 2/3 vote of the legislature to fill any hole.

8. During the last decade we have slashed the basic safety net for children by 35% in spending power, and are now imposing an absolute 60-month lifetime maximum of assistance for children. But when families reach the deadline, we are careful to call it "ending the adult's share."

9. We know that more of our children require some education after high school for jobs in the future economy. But we are not increasing capacity to keep pace, leaving a lower percentage of youth with access to vocational training, community colleges, and university opportunity, just when a much higher percentage will need it.

The near future? It's bleaker still. At the federal level, we have a golden opportunity to show we're made of the real stuff: $1 trillion anticipated in surplus over the next decade. The Republicans want it all to go to middle class adult and the wealthy. The Clinton alternative would give 88% of it to three accounts: Social Security for seniors, Medicare for seniors, and private pension subsidies for seniors.

We top this off by exempting the first million in inheritance from any taxation whatever. The major new federal program to medically insure kids is only marginally successful, and most of the trumpeted spending and announced coverage will likely not occur. And the remaining sop for kids-100,000 new teachers nationally-is typical of child-related spending: a raw number with impressive sound which is not to a scale which means much of anything.

Is the near future brighter in California? Not at all.

Our new education-Governor spends for K-12 public education all of one-quarter of 1% more than he is obligated to spend, or his opponent would have spent. A major foster care reform measure to save many of our 110,000 abused kids lacking adoptive parents is shelved as costing money. And child advocates have dozens of other examples of a "just say no to children" mentality at the Capitol, centered in the Governor's Department of Finance. The list is long and growing.

As a state, we find $4.3 billion in unexpected funds in May 1999, and virtually none of it is invested in children because our new governor claims it will "add to the base."

Earth to Sacramento: These children are our base.

Our new governor is bound and determined not to be caricatured as was his mentor Jerry Brown. No "tax and spend" simplifications. No zen idiosyncrasies. No late night talk show monologue ridicule. Few new waves which leave a wake of enemies. Image cultivation as a man with a heart, but also moderate, careful, and independent.

The reality? One hand is raised, with finger moistened in the air, polling continuously; the other hand is rummaging frenetically through campaign contributor pockets. The Governor seeks the "middle of the road" in all things.

Problem: Where is the road going? It is headed toward a permanent underclass of abject, hopeless poverty-not unlike the Third World countries we have so long pitied.

According to the Columbia University Center on Child Poverty, over 48% of California's children under age 6 live below or near the federal poverty line. Although among the wealthiest states in the union, we are among the five with the highest young child poverty rate, now in unwelcome company with West Virginia and Mississippi. No state has seen a harsher growing division between the wealthy and the poor over the last decade.

The Governor and Legislature are hopelessly lost in vector politics, passively mediating between alternatives framed by a record 1,600 professional registered lobbyists-now 13 for each legislator. Only a handful represent children, and just one represents fulltime only the interests of children.

Our lobbyists are part of a merry-go-round of job interchange between organized interests and state government staff. They arrange for campaign contributions for those with 6 or 8 year term limits, who will all need a large campaign fund to move to a different political office. And they so arrange in a state which allocates $50 billion in public funds annually, and has no state campaign contribution or political spending limits whatever.

In this milieu, where is the road leading? Certainly it travels languidly through a world of territorial disputes between organized interests, such as trial lawyers vs. insurers, doctors vs, trial lawyers, and to close the circle- insurers vs. doctors. It leads toward proprietary short-term profit focus; and away from diffuse interests, away from future interests, away from our children.

Texas politician Ann Richards won cheers at the 1988 Democratic convention when she proclaimed: "George Bush was born standing on third base, and he thinks he hit a triple." I have news for the Democrats: We were almost all born on third base, and every one of us thinks he hit a triple. And we're all wrong.

From building the one-room schoolhouse in the pioneer West, to saving so a son could be the first to own his own home, to that second job so a daughter could be the first to finish college, we have forged a proud tradition of sacrifice for our children. We were put on third base by 200 years of work by our parents, and theirs, and theirs before them.

We are now locked on a course of such selfish indulgence-both private reproductive irresponsibility and public disinvestment-that a new road must be cleared, one requiring daring and politically incorrect, decisive leadership-calling for both accountability, and sacrifice.

The California's Children's Budget 1999-2000, a non-partisan 600-page compilation of empirical evidence on the status of children, state spending trends, and recommended needs, charts such a course. Compiled by the Children's Advocacy Institute, it documents the need to restore now the $6 billion subtracted from children over the past 20 years, and it demands a renewal of private responsibility (www.caichildlaw.org).

The sacrifice it calls for is embarrassingly trivial compared to that made by those who came before us, less of a tax burden than our parents of 20 years paid as a percentage of their less affluent incomes. None of it was enacted in 1999.

But whatever compass we use, whatever specific turns we take, the direction our children need will not come from the cacophony of advocates in Sacramento. It must be affirmatively fashioned by our public officials and monitored by an awakening populace.

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The Los Angeles Times published this commentary on September 12, 1999

Capacity of Colleges is Getting Short Shrift: Jobs Now Require More than a High School Diploma, But We're Not Investing in Providing College Slots

by Robert C. Fellmeth

As classes start for California's community colleges and universities, the high school seniors of last June will find that higher education slots per eligible student are down 6% from nine years ago. Meanwhile, the Urban Institute reports a gross mismatch between jobs available (technical, professional) and the qualifications of welfare parents now required to work (high school education or less).

The children of today are not going to be on assembly lines. And it is not just factories; agriculture and the service sector are automating, too. More jobs need education beyond high school, but we're not providing it.

Sociologists decry income inequality--worse than since the Depression. The Public Policy Institute of California reports that the difference higher education makes on income is growing markedly in the state, and the failure of the poor to get it accounts for an important part of the growing income disparity.

Not all future jobs will belong to the 'techno-geeks," but our employment niche in the 21st century world involves some higher education--vocational, community college and university--or youth employment prospects are dubious. Currently, only 8.1% of our high school seniors are able to choose expensive and limited private colleges. Public higher education is the key, but total available enrollment has not been expanding faster than population growth. In fact, we are now admitting fewer high school students into higher education than we did during 1990-91, denying them a shot at professional and technical skills.

California's children sense the urgency. We see 35% of them choosing high school course work leading to college, and among minorities the commitment is extraordinary: 55% are taking the SAT examination to get into college compared with 31% nationally. They know where the jobs are, and they are asking us to provide the conduit. We need vigorous and planned expansion at a rate of at least 200,000 additional slots per year.

Because this is a commitment that requires capital investment and new instructors, it should have begun well in advance of the need, which is already upon us. Instead of responsibly beginning this work, our governor and Legislature already have punted for 1999-2000, and will do so again unless we hold their feet to the fire. Even in the face of a $4.3-billion unexpected budget surplus in May, the investment in our children was not made.

Gov. Gray Davis contends that the state should not spend one-time surpluses on continuing obligations, which he says "add to the base." These kids are our base. And why do we assume that revenues must be based on current taxes? The $28 billion in annual California tax expenditures and loopholes is not sacrosanct. Why are they not "adding to the (obligation) base?" They continue unless terminated by two-thirds vote of the Legislature. And their proliferation over the last decade has shredded general-fund resources needed for investment in our children.

A $10-million tax credit here, a $100-million one there, pretty soon, you're talking real money.

According to the California Children's Budget 1999-2000--an analysis and recommended alternative budget by the Children's Advocacy Institute--if we spent the same percentage of our personal income on public spending for children as we did 20 years ago, we would be spending $9,773 per child. Instead, we are spending $5,307.

Where are our priorities? President Clinton's are to take the major new source of revenue for public investment (the projected $1-trillion, 10-year budget surplus) and feed three priority accounts: Social Security, Medicare and private pension subsidies. Together, they receive 88% of the total. Unlike our predecessors, who invested heavily in all of us, we are investing in ourselves.

The governor's higher education priority initiatives are: assured UC admission for the top 4% of all high school graduates (with only minor UC enrollment growth) and reduced tuition for state college and university students, including graduate students. This means that Boalt Hall law students and UCSF medical students, already subsidized publicly at $15,000 plus per year each, get a subsidy increase.

These are not the highest priority needs. How about a budget augmentation consistent with the children's budget? And how about planning for next year and thereafter with our children and their future in mind?

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The San Diego Union-Tribune published this commentary on July 29, 1999.

What we're not getting from 'the education governor'

by Robert C. Fellmeth

"My first, second and third priority is education. . . . The time has come to restore California's public schools to greatness." -- Gov. Gray Davis, Jan. 4, 1999

Exciting things are happening in California public education. The Davis administration initiates testing, performance accountability for schools, a reading skills initiative. In San Diego, new bond authority promises the repair of dilapidated structures, and new school Superintendent Alan Bersin puts children before the job security of principals or teacher-union territoriality.

But there is an important element missing here and statewide. While fiscal resources alone do not guarantee success ("throwing money at the problem" is the cliche), simply demanding better performance without additional investment can be just as futile. We need both accountability and effective new investment.

A good example of one target comes from the nationwide reading and math tests of 1998. Then-Gov. Pete Wilson started class-size reduction in kindergarten through third grade in 1996. Research suggests substantial gains occur when class size is cut to 20 children or less.

And early results in California range from a moderate 3 percent comparative gain in one study, to 14 percent by another measure. Even the lower figure is significant given the mere one to two years of exposure to smaller classes for those involved. A small gain repeated year after year can make a momentous cumulative difference. And further improvement is likely with additional investment in teacher quality (compromised in the sudden rush to add classrooms over the last three years).

California once had one of the finest public education systems in the nation. It took 20 years of disinvestment to lower it to near the bottom, with class-size increases a key indicator. The state fell so far behind that even the recent K-3 increases in teachers raised the state only to 49th -- we passed one state.

Child advocates expected the new "education governor" to demand a budget to restore our schools, including teacher quality investment and the phased extension of class-size reduction to grades four to 12.

To accomplish this, we need a four- to five-year concerted effort totaling $6 billion to $8 billion just to move California above the national average in spending for K-12 per child. A similar effort has to be made in higher education where a major capacity increase is essential to assure jobs for our youth in the new international economy.

The California Children's Budget 1999-2000 of the Children's Advocacy Institute proposed $2 billion in 1999-2000 for K-12 classroom reduction and another $2 billion for higher education expansion so this effort can get under way. Together, they would add about 5 percent to total state spending. Neither was proposed by Davis or enacted by the Legislature.

The final California budget for the fiscal year that began on July 1 adds to K-12 education a grand total of a quarter of 1 percent more than constitutionally required and does not seriously reduce class size or enhance teacher quality.

Don't be misled by the raw-number percentage increases cited by public officials. Adjusted for inflation and enrollment, the budget adds 3.4 percent to K-12 spending. A third of that is from the federal government, and all but 0.25 percent of the remainder is compelled by Proposition 98.

For class-size reduction, we have token ninth- and 10th-grade efforts, each about a fifth of the amount needed and half dependent on uncertain federal funds. The total increase for class-size reduction is less than 10 percent of the K-3 effort under the Wilson administration and only 12 percent of the $2 billion needed to get the ball rolling.

In sum, K-12 spending overall is virtually the same budget -- or is very likely lower -- than what we would have had under Dan Lungren.

How would this Davis campaign pledge have sounded? "Education is my first, second, and third priority. So I solemnly pledge that to the minimum amount, which I contend my opponent Dan Lungren would invest in K-12 education, I shall add . . . one quarter of 1 percent more!" Hardly your classic inspirational message.

We have 25 percent child poverty, with more than a third of our children scoring extremely low in national testing and living below or near the poverty line. We face a possible huge, intractable underclass unless we make now -- as in yesterday -- a decisive commitment to education basics and to higher education expansion.

The 600-page California Children's Budget for 1999-2000 documents Davis' failure to begin the effort seriously. Instead of class-size reduction and teacher quality enhancement, a major featured addition from the governor is " school safety," including metal detectors. Statistically, schools are about the safest place our children spend time, and juvenile crime and violence is moving substantially down both nationally and in California. Our new resource priorities should be driven by empirical needs, not by public posturing in response to anecdotes or media hyped drama.

What has been the governor's answer to the Children's Budget recitation of available literature about outcome measures, and its itemized recommendations? It is that he cannot "raise the base" for future spending, even from an unexpected $4.3 billion surplus available, because he is tied to existing taxes and the surplus may not come again.

We should ask why $28 billion per year in tax loopholes (including several added in the new budget) is not "expanding the base." That is a base which continues unless affirmatively ended, and which takes a two-thirds legislative vote to retract. It is now a decade of such favor accumulation (arranged by the 1,500 full-time lobbyists circling the capitol) which explains the momentous decline in public investment in our children over the past 20 years.

We also might ask what is wrong with "raising the base" if the new level is still below the national average in K-12 spending? Are we, one of the wealthiest states in the union, unwilling to make a future commitment to invest in our children at the national average? Here is a thought for the governor and Legislature to ponder: Those children are our base.

Davis and the Legislature have misread the public. They are deathly afraid of the "tax-and-spend" label. But that moniker hung on George Bush was not based on his public spending or tax decisions after his election. We are happy to have more tax money invested in education, so long as it is effectively spent. We were angry because Bush swore he would not raise taxes ("Read my lips") and then did it. It was the deceit, not the taxes. Davis should ponder that precedent carefully as he and the Legislature explain to the electorate their priorities as actually enacted in relation to their respective campaigns.

It takes years of work and major investment commitment -- together with school and parental accountability -- to turn our schools around. The current budget puts off this investment effort yet another year and yet another graduating class, while adults spend a third of their personal income proportionately less per child than did our parents. In terms of commitment to our children, most politicians of both parties are, as usual for the 1990s, talking the talk, and taking another walk.

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