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August 30, 2006
California edunews
As part of his cease-fire with the California Teachers Association, Arnold has agreed to set aside $2.9 billion over the next seven years for the state's 500 lowest-performing schools in order to lower class sizes. But how would the money be spent? That's still up in the air, which has various educrats disgruntled:
The California Association of School Business Officials opposes the measure on the grounds that the money should be available to all school districts, not just those with troubled schools. And the group says there might not be enough available classrooms and teachers to reduce class sizes rapidly.
"We're school business officers," said Sandy Silberstein, director of government relations at CASBO. "Our job is to make it pencil out and work on the ground. And we see a long list of implementation problems."
The California School Boards Association does not officially oppose the measure, but it "has concerns," said Rick Pratt, a spokesman for the group.
The organization agrees that the money should go to the poorest-performing schools in the state, but believes districts should be able to spend the funds on more than class-size reduction. Currently, the measure would allow only 15 percent of the money to go for other needs such as health programs.
"There are out-of-school factors that influence the ability of kids to benefit from smaller classes," Pratt said. "There are health issues, hearing and vision problems that go undetected. ..."
So in the waning days (hours, really) of the legislative session, they're proposing to spend around $5.8 million per school with no real plan of how to get there? And various and sundry agencies are swarming around demanding the money be spent differently? I don't suppose this is much different than most other states, but with an annual education budget of around $55 billion, I guess California is just on a different level.
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