California has been consistently below the national average in per-pupil spending and above the national average in the number of pupils per teacher and pupils per staff. This lack for commitment by the government of California is matched by the state's performance nationally. For instance, California ranks 48th out of 50 in the NAEP Nations Report Card in reading literacy, 43rd in eighth grade math, 49th in science--ahead of only Mississippi. Indeed, when the state commissioned scholars across the nation and the ideological spectrum to do a set of studies in 2007, they found that California's public school funding system "inequitable by any measure," "complex and irrational," and results in "spending below the national average." The Governor's own Committee on Education Excellence concurred: "Research...shows that California's current K through 12 education finance system is the most complex in the nation but yields little benefit. Core funding is based on anachronistic formulas, neither tied to the needs of individual students nor to intended academic outcomes."
How have the governor and legislators reacted to the greatest crisis in public education in the state's history? They have cut budgets to K-12 and higher education year after year. Governor Schwarzenegger's May budget proposal cut $1.6 billion to education for the 2008-2009 school year and $4.2 billion in 2009-2010. Together with the $11.6 billion in previously approved cuts, this action makes California 50th in the US in terms of funding-per-pupil. Coincidently, these cuts were made against the backdrop of a refusal to cut the salaries of legislators and their staffs and a failure to address the underlying structural and constitutional issues that have created a dysfunctional California government.
We the undersigned find the governor and legislators of California to be corrupt, immoral, ineffectual, and generally indifferent to the public good. We vow to actively campaign against all legislators and gubernatorial candidates who fail to (1) take a voluntary pay cut at least equivalent to the 14% imposed upon state workers effective retrospectively from the beginning of state employees' forced furloughs, and effective until those furloughs have ended, (2) introduce and vote for legislation that restores and increases the state education budget, and (3) introduce legislation to address the structural and constitutional issues that create budget crises year after year.
