School Beat: Education is a Budget Target, AgainLisa Schiffbyline‚ Jan. 17‚ 2008Governor Schwarzenegger dropped the expected bomb last week and it was just as destructive as we all feared. His proposal for addressing the anticipated state budget crises (driven by a general down-turn in the housing market and consumer consumption) draws on some familiar, almost formulaic, tired and short-sighted strategies—reduce funding of programs for the neediest residents, slash public education and treat the tax structure as sacrosanct. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. We’ve lived through such periods and their associated rhetoric before, most recently midway into Schwarzenegger’s replacement of Gray Davis in the recall election. Schwarzenegger’s tactic back then was to do a quick and deep raid of Proposition 98, which ensures a certain amount of funding for schools, somehow convincing a naïve group of education leaders that “lending” the state these funds actually meant they would be returned some day soon. |