Today is the last day to vote on the college based fee referendum. I have read the pros and cons on this issue and I feel that despite the legitimate concerns articulated by music major Patricia Rosas in her statement on the Referendum Web site, I have no choice but to vote in favor of the proposed increase.
Rosas echoed my concerns over the proposed initiative when she explained that “the California education budget has been a long-standing dilemma in our legislature. The state did not allocate its funds properly; the prison system, which shares a portion of the state budget with the CSUs, has been placed as a priority over education.”
Sadly, the state has its priorities skewed and since the spineless California legislature has passed its budget crisis onto us, we must vote to increase the college based fees or face reductions in classes offered, a loss of qualified professors and class size increases.
Every time there is a budget hiccup in California, education seems to be first on the cutting block – despite the fact that Democrats are the majority party in California. One of the reasons I am a Democrat is because I believe strengthening public K-12 education and higher education institutions should be the chief concern of government. It is a shame for Democrats to sign off on a budget that puts the prison system on an equal status with education, and it also tarnishes the power we voters entrusted to them.
The reason we’re in this situation is because Democrats sacrificed their values in order to appease Republicans and gain the two-thirds majority needed to pass the state budget. I fear that, in the name of compromise and bipartisanship, President Obama may be peering down the same dark path.
Last Tuesday, he gave his most extensive speech on education yet, saying, “Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though we know it can make a difference in the classroom.” The Associated Press reports that Obama went on to say that “state limits on numbers of charter schools aren’t ‘good for our children, our economy or our country.'”
It seems as though the National Education Association is in the same state of disbelief over President Obama’s statements as I was. AP reports that Dennis van Roekel, the president of the association, “insisted that Obama’s call for teacher performance pay does not necessarily mean raises or bonuses would be tied to student test scores. It could mean more pay for board-certified teachers or for those who work in high-poverty, hard-to-staff schools, he said.
However, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs later confirmed that merit pay is, in fact, what President Obama is proposing. Supporting public education is a constant struggle for equality. Merit pay and charter schools will only increase the disparity between the education of the rich and the poor.
Teacher performance should not be the focus when considering how to improve our public education system. I attended “low performing” schools throughout my K-12 education, and I’ve found that the major difference between students who succeed and those who do not is intrinsic motivation and parental support. In general, my experience has been that students who want to learn and succeed will find teachers who are more than willing to support them.
President Obama’s current proposal to remove the state limit on charter schools will drain the public education system, because the higher-performing students will flock to the higher-performing schools that offer more opportunities. Allocating a portion of public funding to charter schools also takes away from our equal-access public education system. Why can’t our government just support the system we have in place?
Despite his flawed proposals, President Obama has followed through on his campaign promise to increase funding for public schools. The stimulus package doubles funding to public schools compared to the Bush administration, and I believe that he is making a genuine effort to implement his “cradle to career” approach to education.
He’s just going about it the wrong way with those two components of his plan. Doubling federal funding for public schools is a significant improvement itself. If he gave his team of economic experts the task of finding a new way to more equitably fund public schools at the state level, who knows how much the achievement gap might shrink? If student academic performance could somehow be tied to parent pay, all of our educational problems might be solved. However, whenever the role of the public education system in America is diminished, so is Obama’s hope of increasing the competitiveness between American and international students.
Stephanie England is an English junior and a Mustang Daily political columnist.