The LA Times has an interesting account of how the California Teachers Association whipsawed Schwarzenegger.  Quick background: Prop. 98, an amendment to the state constitution, guarantees certain education spending levels.  Predictably, it’s also a massive obstacle to balancing the budget, which Schwarzenegger had promised to do in his 2003 campaign:

If the amount spent on education in a given year fell short of Prop. 98’s guarantee, the difference would be paid off in the future. Because the state almost always owed money under Prop. 98, the education lobby, and the CTA in particular, held a political sword over the governor and the Legislature.

Accepting this reality, Schwarzenegger in his first weeks in office approached Hein again and, with (adviser Bonnie) Reiss handling much of the negotiating, cut an extraordinary deal that gave him a one-year cushion as he tried to reduce a $16-billion deficit. Under the agreement, the schools would receive whatever the Prop. 98 guarantee was eventually calculated to be in his first budget year—minus $2 billion in savings that Schwarzenegger sought.

But a year later, finding himself backed into a corner, Schwarzenegger apparently realized too late the poison pill he had swallowed.  And according to this, even after the $2 billion postponement, K-12 spending in FY 2004 had been increased nearly $2.6 billion to $59 billion (a per-pupil average of $9,864).  So maybe Schwarzenegger can be forgiven for thinking in late 2004 that the CTA might provide some flexibility:

On Dec. 15, three top Schwarzenegger aides, including Tom Campbell, told John Campbell (no relation to Tom), a Republican legislator who was drafting a budget reform initiative, that the governor wanted to amend Prop. 98 as part of the measure.

The next day, Schwarzenegger invited CTA President Barbara Kerr, a Riverside schoolteacher, to a meeting inside the governor’s Capitol offices. Schwarzenegger and his team had decided to make no mention of the budget reform proposal. Instead, he used the meeting to try to figure out if there was any way he could renegotiate his original budget deal with CTA.

I’m having some trouble, Schwarzenegger confessed to Kerr. I can’t keep the deal this year without hurting health care and other programs. Is there anything you could do to help us?

We have a deal, Kerr bluntly replied. We expect you to honor it. The CTA had agreed only to the one-time, one-year savings of $2 billion from the Prop. 98 guarantee, she said. If Schwarzenegger didn’t give the schools the full Prop. 98 guarantee, including the growth, he would be taking more money from education. "I think he was startled that I didn’t just say, ‘Oh, OK.’ I don’t think he likes to be told no," Kerr said. There was discussion but no resolution. Kerr and the CTA officials left after 90 minutes.

As the article goes on to illustrate, Arnold learned the hard way that no California governor messes with the CTA.  Period.  Meanwhile, the editorial staff suggests that everybody on both sides of the LAUSD takeover could use some time in detention:

As legislation to carve up governance of the school district moves forward, the posturing has heated up to the point of political neener-neener. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa berates and belittles the district with questionable statistics. Superintendent Roy Romer delivers an over-the-line retort, likening the mayor to the architects of Japanese American internment. The mayor then reacts to this relatively minor miscue with dramatic outrage and demands a retraction. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger then has Villaraigosa’s back with a quick verbal jab at Romer, implying that the superintendent deserves to be fired for the "horrible" job that’s been done running the district.

The governor’s staff needs to do a better job on prep — the point of the legislation is to disempower the fractious and glacier-slow school board, not the superintendent, who is leaving in September anyway after having made real improvements at the schools over the last few years. Those improvements, though, have been far from Romer’s boast of being "spectacular." This is a district desperate for change, not fictitious accolades or poisoned barbs.

It can become easy to forget that underneath the verbal fireworks lurks an actual piece of legislation, and that it remains a step in the wrong direction. The bill comes before the state Senate Appropriations Committee in one week, and though Villaraigosa’s office has been hard at work amending it, so far nothing has emerged that would move it in the necessary direction — true mayoral control of the schools.

I hope somebody over in L.A. is chronicling all this, because it probably deserves its own book.  But while the LAUSD takeover brawl continues, neighboring districts are grappling with falling enrollment:

Over the last seven years, nearly 400 students have left the public school rosters in Santa Barbara. Enrollment in this wealthy, Spanish-tiled coastal haven has dropped as steadily as home prices have risen.

It is a trend expected to continue as the median home price pushes past $1 million.

It is also a trend that increasingly appears to be occurring across California.

Public schools circling downtown Los Angeles are losing students as their neighborhoods gentrify. A similar shift is underway in the Bay Area, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and Orange and Ventura counties.

Statewide, public school enrollment was down slightly this year, for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. And though officials aren’t quite sure of all the reasons behind the drop, they are sure that the cost of housing is one of them.

In Santa Barbara, school administrators worry about lost revenue, because funding is tied to enrollment.

Already, administrators said, the decline has cost the district millions annually. Now, having made small, less-painful cuts, they are considering larger steps, such as selling off vacant property or building housing to sell to teachers at below-market value.

Building the houses, they say, would help recruit teachers, who otherwise might not be able to afford the area, and the school system would bring in some revenue from the sales.

Another option is to start closing schools, a move that is always unpopular, said Jan Zettel, the Santa Barbara School Districts’ assistant superintendent of secondary education.

"We don’t think we will have to close a school in the next year," he said, "but beyond that, yes, it’s entirely possible."

In response to this dilemma, a collection of philanthropists has devised the perfect solution: new edutaxes!

Every property owner in California, no matter how big or small or valuable their parcel, faces paying a flat $50 tax to fund schools under a measure voters will be asked to approve in November.

Although it’s still early in the election season, the move already is generating criticism from taxpayer groups and property owners who say it’s a regressive tax and adds to the burden on average citizens who are already overtaxed.

Proponents of Proposition 88 - authored by EdVoice, a coalition that includes backing from such wealthy philanthropists as Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Silicon Valley investor John Doerr and SunAmerica Chairman Eli Broad - say the state’s schools are in dire need.

But critics note the measure places the same tax on a small one-bedroom home in Reseda as it does on a mansion in Bel Air or massive farm in the Central Valley.

"I think it’s going to look foolish to have the two primary proponents, Reed Hastings, the owner of Netflix, and John Doerr, another Silicon Valley billionaire, impose a tax on everyone else that hits their multimillion-dollar mansions the same as a struggling family," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

"I’m not sure they have completely thought through how that’s going to be perceived."

No matter where you may sit on the idea of a flat tax, there’s no denying that last sentence is a bit of an understatement.