CSUN University News Clippings

Editorial: Budget hysteria: Save cash without raiding classes

(January 9, 2009)

THERE’S one surefire way to tell that state leaders are wrangling over budgets in Sacramento: School officials are shrieking about the end of the world in Los Angeles.

It happens every year.

If budgets are tight - and given Sacramento’s propensity to create a budget crisis every two to three years, that’s often - Los Angeles Unified School District officials will offer up a number of dire predictions for what might happen if they don’t get enough money:

Zillions of kids crammed into dilapidated classrooms; students starving without subsidized meals; thousands of teachers taking to the unemployment lines.

It’s easy to get cynical about this Chicken Little act. The predictions of woe never seem to materialize. Usually they just serve to rile up parents and, more importantly, the unions, who in turn lobby Sacramento, which ultimately comes through with less draconian cuts.

It’s worth remembering that the LAUSD hasn’t had widespread teacher layoffs in more than a decade.

That said, this year’s state budget crisis is extreme even by Sacramento standards. The combination of a down economy and years without financial discipline has taken its fiscal toll, resulting in a $40 billion deficit. And LAUSD officials report a $400 million (or 3 percent) shortfall in their $12 billion budget.

So, predictably, they’re conjuring up countless ways students may have to suffer: Kindergarten classes packed with 40 children; 45 million meals lost for poor students; no art classes; pink slips for hundreds of teachers.

But such extreme consequences are unacceptable, no matter what Sacramento does.

This is a school district with a bureaucracy so massive, so unwieldy, that it just fired its superintendent - who was hired for his ability to manage complex organizations - because he couldn’t get a handle on it. Poor David Brewer III could never even figure out how many superfluous bureaucrats he had, let alone what they were doing.

This is also a school district that, due to its perpetually problematic payroll system, continues to pay employees who have long ago left or even died. And it has an entire layer of mini districts that have never delivered on their promise of decentralization and only add to the bureaucratic fat.

All of which is to say, there’s a lot of cutting to be done in administration before anyone should even think of slashing classroom resources. There are also many high-priced consultants who should get the ax before any teachers do.

The district could also save some money by stopping its passive- aggressive battle against charter schools. These campuses educate students better - and less expensively - than traditional public schools. The LAUSD should embrace charters instead of trying to make life miserable for them.

Cuts to classrooms should be a last resort. It’s unthinkable that even one needed teacher should be let go while even one needless bureaucrat hangs on.

Publication: Daily News