State of the State
“…Digging ourselves into a deep financial hole—to do good—is a bad idea…In a world still reeling from the near collapse of the financial system, it makes no sense to spend more than we have” (Brown, 2012). Most people would nod their heads in agreement at the previous quote taken from the governor of California Jerry Brown’s recent State of the State address. Sadly, when dealing with the financial planning of a state larger and more populous than some countries, and the world’s 8th largest economy, prudent decisions are not as easy to make as the governor’s simplification might lead Californians to believe. In the State’s budget, concerned citizens glean the real state of the state and where the government is leading California in the next year. Last year, Governor Jerry Brown made “massive [spending] cuts—totaling 16 billion” (Brown, 2012) to direct the state back to financial security. Now, the governor addressed several issues in his speech including building the nation’s only high speed rail system to continue to improve the economic state of the state. While the governor has many ideas on where to lead the state, there are still uncovered solutions to improving our schools and reducing pollution and greenhouse gases.¬¬
When the governor first took office, ¬he proposed a tax increase. California’s state tax on personal income is already one of the highest in the nation (Petruno, 2009). The governor stresses how taxes must be raised to close the deficit and support our schools, “this most basic of public services” (Brown, 2012). A decent amount of the budget must be used to fund schooling. That point is undisputable. What the governor hasn’t considered is the way funds are spent in American schools. Californians especially covet innovation, so naturally we would apply this in the form of technology in our schools. Californians want every child to have a laptop, engage in educational computer programs, and write essays on their laptop. The problem is all these computer labs are expensive, and they haven’t been proven to improve the student’s learning experiences across the board. Americans literally throw away money in the form of technology in the classroom. Projectors, overheads, white boards, and computers are all unneeded for learning. American primary schools are subpar to most of Europe although the Europeans do not use these technological frivolities. In France, the students pay for their own books for school, two to four computers are available for everyone, and there isn’t an overhead to be seen, yet French students’ graduate high school with a much higher competency than American students. California schools need to be reformed and students taught that the way to learn information is to sit down and memorize it. Complex technology isn’t needed for primary school learning, and the state could transfer these saved funds to after school programs.
The governor proposes simplifying the process of allocating funds to local governments for schools so they can better serve their students (Brown 2012). Giving the power to use funding to the local governments is an excellent idea because they are much more in touch with the actual needs of the students. This is profoundly true in California where the population is more diverse than in other states. The faculty and school district leaders in Los Angeles or San Francisco are more informed with the needs of their students than a budget planning committee full of businessmen and lawyers in an office in Sacramento. Getting test data to teachers faster will do nothing. Teachers already know what their students need. Almost any school faculty member, even the students, will tell you the standardized tests are not an accurate representation of the needs or education levels of the student body. Having the teachers fill out a survey of the needs of the students in each class and compiling this data would be much more beneficial to the students and the budget