I’m going to research this a bit, but I bet that the education budget for CA has increased over the last 12 years at a FAR higher rate than the sum of student population growth plus inflation. And I think I know where most of that ended up. And it ain’t in the classroom.[/quote]
Let’s go to the tape:
1998 CA Dept. of Education budget: $22.3 bil
2010 CA Dept. of Education budget: $52.8 bil
That’s annual growth of 7.5%.
1998 CA population: 33.3 mil
2010 CA population (est.): 37.1 mil.
That’s annual growth of 0.9%. Throw in some illegal immigration and I’ll liberally grant growth of 1.5% annually over the period.
Importantly, over the last decade the two age groups contributing most to CA’s growth were 18-24 and 45-64. The school-age group of 5-17 was below CA’s average.
So, let’s take 3% inflation plus my generous 1.5% school-age population growth and – voila! – we get to 4.5% growth in expected education expenditures. But, in fact, it’s been 7.5%. That 3% spread for CA’s largest budget item is the single largest source of our current budget problems. 3% compounded over 12 years on 40% of your budget leads to big problems. Now I’m sure there are other problem areas as well, but until we address the education issue, we’re just pissing in the wind.
