Wow, California is really getting hit there.

It's already legal here in NJ to charge "activity fees" for any extracurricular activities that aren't mandated by the state, whether sports or other activities.  

I find it so offensive.  First of all, I have a big problem charging people to use buildings and facilities that are public in general.  

And of course, it's never applied evenly.  An ice hockey team will have to pay for their ice time, but the football team gets whatever they want including ridiculous field lights so they can have home games at night a few times a year.

There is an exemption for kids who can't afford it.  That kind of sucks too and I hope they do it in a way that is confidential.

And all the rich towns have foundations for the public schools now too, with their big annual high-price ticket benefits each year.    

Districts are measured by "per pupil" allotments from the state. Our district, Irvine, has one of the lowest in the entire state.  We are a district that sends more tax revenue to Sacramento than we get back.

The cut that will affect my family is 3rd grade class size reduction (CSR).  They're looking to save only about half a million dollars- all teacher salaries- but once they reconfigure classrooms from 20 to 33 students, we'll never get CSR back.  My daughter is currently in 1st grade.

In past years, the IPSF (Irvine Public Schools Foundation) has held campaigns to "save CSR."  My favorite part of their campaign was a promise - if we don't raise enough money and CSR is not saved, you will get your donation back!  CSR has been in place for K-3 and 9 since my kids started in this district.  The Governator comes rampaging in with his cuts and now we're losing 3rd and 9th grade CSRs.

The cuts on paper are merely suggestions until the actual state budget is published, perhaps as late as September.  The individual districts have to create their budgets by June 30.  The bottom line is, if the State Budget provides more generously to districts than anticipated, the districts can "save" some of their previously cut programs.  It's going to be a long summer.

there are many school districts that just out and out charge "fees"....these can range from small fees in the $5-$20 range, or larger fees that might go past a hundred or so dollars.  Ofcourse, they always state that those who can't afford to pay these fees won't be penalized, but I wonder what one has to do to prove this.

Recently an interesting case was presented involving a couple of the suburban schools in our area.  Both of these districts were offering full day kindergarten, but requiring payment for the full day option.  Half day was free.  I can't remember how this was resolved; I'll have to search that out.  

Our schools have been struggling for years for funding. The court even forced the state legislature to increase school funding a few years ago.

Ours schools lost some music programs and some athletics and instituted a fee system.  (My 8th grader's fees were $197.00 and that didn't include any sports fees.) However, if you qualify for free or reduced lunch your fees are free (or reduced).

We also have a school foundation that raises funds.  They give awards to teachers and fund a pre-school for low income/at risk kiddos that is run by the district.

Our district is probably better off than most, but it's still quite grim. They sent pink slips to every  instructional aide (including our bilingual kindergarten aide, who is absolutely essential) and we'll have to eliminate our reading program, currently led by a credentialed reading specialist. We are losing a couple of teacher positions, (after already losing one last year), but I think we've managed to get retirements rather than layoffs.

Basically, it will be a holding pattern until budgets improve.

Our classes will still be 20 kids per grade, at least, because that's what we have: 20 kids, one class per grade.

I volunteered to draft a letter encouraging parents to write Sacramento.

Our school is very successful. We have a 70% free lunch rate, and are a California Distinguished School. We regularly get kids coming in with limited english in kindergarten and have them on an honors track by 2nd/3rd grade. If these cuts go through, it will hurt a generation of our kids, because even if the funding is restored the next year, those experienced aides, who have been in the community and the school for a decade or more in many cases, will be permanently gone, off to retirement or to other jobs.

To pass the budget as proposed by Schwartzenegger, the legislature will have to vote to suspend Proposition 98, which mandates a floor on school funding. It requires a 2/3 vote - which is the same margin required to pass any budget.

The cut works out to around $800 per student.

There is much good analysis at http://www.californiaschoolfinance.org/ .

What the hell is wrong with people?  How short-sighted are we as citizens, truly?  

Here in Pennsylvania, all people ever talk about is property tax relief.  Well, guess what, there is no free lunch. You want poorly educated hopeless kids wandering around your neighborhoods or are you willing to shell out for the greater good?

Revenue has to come from somewhere.  People -- all people, not just the parents -- have to pony up.

So upsetting.

Maybe.

Q: Even in good years it seems there’s always a push to raise money for local schools. Why isn’t there enough money for education?
Many blame Proposition 13, which in 1978 rolled back property taxes and restructured future tax increases. Up until this initiative, our state operated with a budget surplus, and about 60 percent of K-12 funding came from property taxes, compared to about 21 percent today.

But it was another seismic shift that impacted districts in more affluent areas. In 1976, the California Supreme Court ruled in the case of Serrano v. Priest that property taxes should not stay local. Instead, the court decided that these dollars should be sent up to Sacramento and redistributed based on student population.

And yet, that distribution is not equal. To this day, some school districts receive fewer per-pupil dollars based on formulas that factored in the estimated value of local properties at the time of Proposition 13. Because IUSD was mostly agricultural back then, we were benchmarked at a lower rate based on the value of the land. These days, it’s hard to find land more expensive than in Irvine. And yet, we are considered by definition a “low wealth” district based on these antiquated formulas. Though we’ve made some gains in equalization over the years, we remain among the lower funded districts.

We are leaving San Francisco for Austin TX. We didn't do it for better schools, but our daughter is getting a much more interesting program for middle school than is available here. It's a magnet program, so it contributes to integration, still an acceptable goal in Austin. Neither of these is necessarily linked to money, but I noted that my Austin-based friend's kids had PE and art teachers--real certified teachers assigned full time to the school--in elementary school. SFUSD hasn't been able to afford that in a long time. Increasing class size appears to be the only substantial way to cut spending, as far as I can tell.  The school budgets are already skeletal.