how did the Cal public school system become so crappy?

[pstokely]

it happened long before Davis was in office, Arnold will make it even worse

[punpirate]

1. Native Californians can correct me on this...

... but as I recall, under Wilson's tenure, there were cuts and reorganizations, and the introduction of privately-run public schools such as those run by Edison (which, in California, have had their share of problems, I think).

Compounding that was the boom economy in some areas of the state, and teachers were moving to other parts of the state or out of the state entirely, because they couldn't afford to live on what they were making teaching.

The remainder of the problem may go back to Prop. 13, passed in 1978, which froze property taxes at 1975 levels, and restricted increases to 2% per year. With the extreme rise in rates of inflation from then through the middle `80s, costs to operate went through the roof, while the tax base support was essentially static.

Cheers.

[AP]

2. I don't know, but I'd guess Prop 13 means not enought tax

money is raised by corps paying at rates set against 1980s valuations.

[bobbieinok]

3. Wasn't it proposition 13 (??)

The one that put significant limits on property taxes (the main source of school funding).

At least I remember that was the predicted effect of the proposition. It was part of the so-called 'taxpayer revolt'...was that in the 70s or was it in the 80s??

Before that vote, CA's public school system and state college/university system were considered among the best in the USA.

Was this proposition based on Milton Friedman's economic theories that he propounded at the U of Chicago?? If so, it might be interesting to see if some of his students were also students of Leo Strauss, who is now being 'outed' as the father of the neo-con PNAC crew.

[Waistdeep]

4. I was at a Molly Ivins talk in California a few years ago

and she looked at the audience and said something like "you should be ashamed at what you let happen to the schools. California used to have the best school system in the world..." And she meant schools from Kindergarten through college.

There was once a time when any high school graduate in California could get a free college education. No longer.

Prop. 13 sealed the public schools fate, although decay had set in before that.

[inthecorneroverhere]

8. you're exactly correct

Problems involving educational trendiness and lack of standards were present pre-1977, but Jarvis-Gann made the damage permanent and worsened a situation that would have been reversible in the mid-1970s.

Have lots of experience in this area - father was a high school teacher in Calif. and I got scr*wed by schools that tolerated a lot of peer discrimination against achievers.

[pstokely]

5. does anyone remember this commercial

http://www.80stvthemes.com/ra/CASCHOOLS.ra

[haele]

6. It actually started during the Reagan gubamatorial era...

And part of it was due to the end of the baby-boomers; by 1966 (when my father got his first set of teaching credentials), elementery schools and community colleges were seeing cutbacks in terms of public funding, and those entering the teaching field were finding there were fewer and fewer full-time teaching opportunities from the get-go.
There was also a problem with various "newer, hipper and more cost effective methods" of teaching developed by educational "think tanks" and "development specialists" (i.e. politicians - not teachers or anyone who had actually spent time in the classroom)that was being foisted on the public school sector. A lot of failed programs that seemed more like a lazy-minded graduate student's experiment were tried out in California public schools. Most of these programs were tied into additional endowment funding from the sponser group to try the new product out; a school district that was seeing state funding cut because of enrollment problems often had to go with the newest "Doubleday modular teaching product" for, say, elementry school English to be able to pay for some sort of library or science program that would otherwise be cut.

There was also the problem of a cultural preception shift due to a rising influx of neuvo-affluence; public schools were seen to be the dumping ground for minorities and poor white children until they grew up to work in their menial jobs, instead of as a jump-off point of education for all Californians, including those from a "professional" background.

The reason Papa Haele moved us all up to Seattle from California in 1970 was because there became a glut of teachers and fewer education jobs in the public sector for teachers who had the degrees and credentials for education up to Jr. College level, and he couldn't get a permanant job to support us.

Haele

[inthecorneroverhere]

7. you got it

....then Prop. 13 did the rest.

Calif. schools were top in the nation until the early 1970's. Then, they slowly started to go downhill.

Community colleges were free until Prop. 13 or maybe a few years afterward.

Basically, I got scr*wed by Calif. schools and refused to follow my father's footsteps into teaching.

This, along with the outrageous overinflation of home prices in Calif. is why I left California in 1986. Went to grad school out of state and never went back.

[Robin Hood]

9. Simple prop 13, but..

Let's remember that California has the best college system in the nation. It's one of the main reasons that it's the nations cash cow. You sll can thank Govrnor pat brown for that, a Democrat.

[LeftCoast]

10. This latest crisis is putting the nail in the coffin for our Universities

1st K-12 went down the tubes, now our TWO university systems + community college systems are being raped. They're estimating that the Cal State system will have to turn away 100,000 students next year (based on current fiscal projections).

:(

[Il_Coniglietto]

11. I don't know how it was then, but I can tell you how it is now

as a junior at South Pasadena High School. When I was signing up for classes this summer, I was told that I could only get about three classes of my choosing. My counselor said that I was locked (pretty much stuck) in two classes and they could only afford for me to take five real classes. So I chose my other three and then they gave me my two last periods: P.E. and Study Hall.

Every single class at that school is overflowing, waaay over state limits. At one point, my P.E. class had something like 65 or 70 students in it, when the limit is about 50. Study Hall is even worse. It consists of sitting in the cafeteria for an hour and a half with no place to sit and no air conditioning since they have no classrooms to put us in. The bathrooms have no soap, toilet paper, or towels. There aren't enough books for everyone so we have to share them and carry them with us at all times.

And this is an LA suburb, right next door to the infamously rich San Marino. Ahnuld will make things trmedously worse.

[Yupster]

12. Pardon this ld guy, but

what is study hall?