USD Magazine, Spring 1993

DeRoche lists several steps that can be taken to improve California's schools: setting specific goals on a national level; downsizing the central office bureaucracy and forcing schools to be more creative and responsive; establishing programs like San Diego's pilot project to serve as a center for coordinating social services for children; and wresting control of the educational purse strings from Sacramento and giving them back to the local districts. California's 1992-93 budget, which lowers the floor for spending on education and also contains sections discouraging school districts from suing for more money, is one that presumes the California economy will rebound before the fiscal year ends on June 30. It won't happen, economists predict. Instead, they predict that state and local governments will lose 50,000 jobs or more by the end of the year and the defense industry will lay off perhaps an additional 25,000. Most say it will be 1994 before California starts to see an upturn in its economy. "I think we'll see a spiral and real turnaround at the begin– ning of '94," says an optimistic Fowlkes. "By then, with NAFTA in place and some new technology and industry, we should start to see some development. But 1993 is not going to be a fun year." Fowlkes says growth will be slow to come without changes at the state level, in programs such as workers' compensation and regulations. The changes need to make it attractive for businesses to stay in California and at the same time attract new businesses and industries, preferably manufacturers. "California was one of the last states to get hit by the reces– sion, and it will be one of the last states out of it," predicts Aloe. "I believe the pendulum always swings back unless we go into a full-blown depression. Not since the Great Depression have so many homebuilders been so anxious to get rid of their inventory and offered homes at such low profits. On the other hand, homeowners trying to sell their homes are also nervous about getting their price." Aloe says this is the best time to buy a house because inter– ests are at a 25-year low. "But there is a problem with confi– dence," he adds. "People worry about losing their jobs and the uncertainty of the whole economic climate. There is no urgency to buy. People say, 'What if I get laid off?"' As the number of unemployed Americans rose to almost 10 million in late 1992, the possibility of layoffs became increas– ingly real to many Californians, who once felt themselves in recession-proof positions. Fowlkes' career center deals with dislocated workers every day. Many of the out-of-work clients were once middle-man-

dropped to 4 7th among the 50 states in class size and in the bottom third of per-pupil expenditures, says USD Dean of Education Ed DeRoche. DeRoche blames demographics, economics and politics for the declining state education system, adding that the state needs to build a new school every day-at an annual cost of $1 bil– lion-just to keep up with the number of new students. It's a big price tag, especially when you consider there is a $10 bil– lion backlog of school funding requests already on file. Economically, the schools have been hit hard over the past year, with a 7 percent budget cut in addition to a 5 percent inflation rate-making for a 12 percent reduction overall. DeRoche says the average teacher chips in about $200 a year just to buy supplies for the classroom. And the California State Lottery, which apportions a per– centage of its earnings to the public schools, hasn't proved to be the financial savior it was once touted to be. DeRoche says only 3.5 cents out of every dollar spent on the lottery goes to education. Politically, DeRoche lays the blame for the declining educa– tion system on Propositions 13 and 98, which shifted the fund– ing for education away from local school districts to Sacramento, and prohibited local school districts from levying taxes. Every school in the state is clamoring for its share of the 42 percent of the state budget automatically set aside for grades K-12.

:1.,4 1

MAGAZINE

U S D