[quote=AN]We’re paying on par w/ some of the private school (excluding the elite LJCD, Bishops, etc). Those schools have class size that’s 1/2 of what the public school kids have to deal with. Why?
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For one thing, Prop 30 has enabled many schools to bring back class size reduction.
In San Diego, the union has been pushing for class size reduction, but the school board is fighting it. Not sure about the latest news, as this is a few months old.
The resolution was a deeply inadequate response to SDEA’s action at the Oct. 1 Board meeting, where roughly 150 union members packed the room to deliver a petition signed by nearly 2,000 members. The petition called on the Board to protect $20 million in state funding by immediately returning K-3 class size to 24:1. The state budget requires SDUSD to work towards a 24:1 K-3 student-to-teacher ratio. But Superintendent Cindy Marten and the School Board are moving in the opposite direction by increasing K-3 class size. Increasing K-3 class size could result in a loss of $20 million in state funding – and that’s bad for all students!
But many districts have already lowered class sizes, so private schools don’t have half the number of students (in many cases, class size is comparable).
Why did we lose class size reduction? Because the financial crisis hit all public agencies extremely hard. It’s pretty difficult to maintain services at a certain level when have record drops in revenue while demand for public services and welfare programs skyrocket.
The budget gaps result principally from weak tax collections. The Great Recession that started in 2007 caused the largest collapse in state revenues on record. Since bottoming out in 2010, revenues have begun to grow again but are still far from fully recovered. As of the first quarter of 2012, state revenues remained 5.5 percent below pre-recession levels, and are not growing fast enough to recover fully soon.
Meanwhile, states’ education and health care obligations continue to grow. States expect to educate 540,000 more K-12 students and 2.5 million more public college and university students in the upcoming school year than in 2007-08.[1] And some 4.8 million more people are projected to be eligible for subsidized health insurance through Medicaid in 2012 than were enrolled in 2008, as employers have cancelled their coverage and people have lost jobs and wages.[2]
