ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

Letters in today's LA Times on covering the cost of educating kids:

"Tapped, schools turn to parents"

We are witnessing the beginning of privatization of the public schools. Wealthy parents will reach into their pockets to help finance their children's schools, but schools in low-income neighborhoods will have even fewer resources than they have this year, and many of those children will receive a less-enriched education and negatively affect California's economy for decades to come.

Wendell H. Jones
Ojai

This is a sad commentary, and as a father of a schoolteacher and grandfather of three children attending or about to attend public schools, I am concerned with the impact that the pending budget cuts will create. However, I note with some cynicism The Times mentioning Proposition 13 as having "dramatically reduced school finances." Proposition 13 was a voter mandate for fiscal responsibility on the part of the California government. We blame Proposition 13, when in fact the real blame should be focused on the Legislature, which has had many opportunities to align budget resources, including a golden opportunity during the windfall years of the late 1990s. Instead, the legislators blew this opportunity, and now we face an overwhelming crisis that endangers the future of quality education in our state.

John Davidson
San Juan Capistrano

It's disheartening that parents (and even some teachers) are being asked to donate $400 per child to keep class sizes lower. Instead of writing checks, they should be writing letters to the governor and state legislators to request proper funding for our schools. These legislators are responsible for the budget deficit, and they control school funding. That $400 may cover this year, but next year it may be $600, and what about the years after that? As long as parents bail out the schools, it takes the heat off Sacramento, and our children will never be provided with adequate funding for their education.

Angela Morgan
Dana Point

I have heard a lot of complaining about budget cuts to the Ojai schools (all public schools, really). Nobody wants to reduce education funding, but when you have to reduce the overall state budget, and education is the largest expense in the budget, cuts to education funding can't be avoided.

Or can they?

Here's a question: Just for curiosity sake, where else would YOU personally cut in the state's budget to avoid cuts to education? (Please go to the proposed budget page at http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/agencies.html . Let's stick to specific items from the budget, not just generalized 'I'd cut wasteful spending!' type comments please).

Isn't that $300K figure about the same as OUSD was forced to pay in legal fees to defend that frivolous lawsuit filed against San Antonio school?

Consequences are inconvenient things.