FLASHREPORT

DEMOCRATS NEED TO GET THEIR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT ON EDUCATION

Assembly Republican Caucus Chairman Bob Huff

With California’s schools facing budget uncertainty next year in light of our $17 billion deficit, there should be no more important priority for the Legislature than giving schools funding stability.

In recent weeks, Sacramento Democrats and their liberal allies have said much about how education is their top priority.  They held dozens of press conferences at schools around the state talking about the importance of protecting funding for schools.  As is often the case in Sacramento, actions speak louder than words.

Not only have Democrats failed to lead on the issue, they have devoted more effort to passing an extreme agenda for our schools than working across party lines to put more dollars in the classroom.  Nowhere was this more on display than the debate on two measures during a recent hearing of the Assembly Education Committee. 

One bill, Senate Bill 1105 (Margett) would revoke the teaching credentials of those convicted of sex offenses, drug crimes and other violent crimes if they plead guilty or no contest.  I was surprised to hear representatives of the California Teachers Association testify in opposition.  Keeping sex offenders and other dangerous individuals out of our schools should be something we can all agree upon.  It is just plain wrong to put both students and teachers at risk in our schools just to keep more dues-paying union members on the payroll.

At the same hearing, we heard testimony on a bill being pushed by Democrats, Senate Bill 1322 (Lowenthal) that would eliminate the prohibition on Communists teaching in California’s public schools.  Listening to the testimony, I couldn’t help but think that there are more pressing priorities we should be debating, especially with the June 30 budget deadline just around the corner.

Parents, teachers and students continue to wait for the liberal majority to match their rhetoric with action.  Their irresponsible priorities show just how out of touch they really are with the priorities of hard-working California families. 

My Assembly Republican colleagues and I believe that the Legislature must act without delay to pass an education budget and protect our schools.  We have proposed our own education budget plan to give schools a year-over-year increase in funding, without growing the deficit or raising taxes.  Our plan also includes reforms to give schools more freedom and flexibility from costly mandates so they can put more dollars in the classroom despite our budget problems.

But Democrats showed once again that they have become the party of no, rejecting the responsible ideas put forward by Republicans to fully fund our schools, while in the same breath demanding higher taxes and higher spending. 

They even went so far as to say that our plan to increase school funding year-over-year was somehow a “cut” to education because the increase in school funding we propose is not as much as they want.  In the real world, when you spend more on something next year than you did this year, that would be considered a spending increase.  Only in Sacramento would spending more money next year be considered a cut.

It’s time for Democrats to end the partisan drills and get their education priorities straight.  Only by working together to put our schools and taxpayers first can we reach bipartisan consensus on an education budget that invests in the classroom.  Our children deserve no less.
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Assembly Republican Caucus Chair Bob Huff, of Diamond Bar, represents the 60th Assembly District in the California Legislature.  You can write to Huff, via the FR, here.