Two-thirds of adults surveyed in a Public Policy Institute of California poll say they support higher taxes to maintain funding for K-12 schools. And a full 82 percent, including a majority of Republicans polled, oppose cutting K-12 education to reduce the state budget deficit.  No other part of state spending comes close to engendering such support in the poll, which was released Wednesday.

Gov.  Schwarzenegger should keep those numbers in mind, because they’ll only go up  in coming months, as school districts lay out next year’s severe budget cuts and, in March, when they send out layoff notices to teachers.

The governor  can say, “No problem. No taxes needed, because I pledged in my State of the State address to protect K-12 schools.” But if that’s so, then why are districts startewide talking about, in various combinations, knocking five days off the school year, expanding class sizes in elementary school to 28 to 30, eliminating summer school and about every discretionary program left and asking staff to take additional pay cuts?

What matters to Californians is how many dollars school districts will actually have to meet payroll – not Schwarzengger’s technical definition of meeting a Proposition 98 formula that he has contorted. The gap between the reality facing schools and Schwarzenegger math is huge.

The most commonly cited figure is that districts face about a $200 per student cut next year. But when all of the governor’s proposed cuts are totaled — $500 million in the class-size reduction program, $300 million in phantom savings from contracting out services, $900 million in Prop 98 manipulation, $1.2 billion in as yet undefined cuts to districts “administration,”  and $200 million in a negative cost of living adjustment –  the figure, according to the California School Boards Assn., is closer to $400 per student– about a cut of 6 percent in state dollars.

But this is only part of the story. Federal stimulus dollars filled in holes last year, but districts have used most of that money up, and the $1 billion additional that K-12 schools had assumed would be theirs next year will end up about half. (At least the governor diverted it to a good cause: higher ed.)

And then there’s the future to worry about. Unlike most governments, school districts are required by law to produce a three-year balanced budget. Looking ahead, there’s trouble: the expiration of temporary state sales and income tax surcharges starting in 2011 and a phase-in  of a billion-dollar corporate tax credit. The Legislature may rescind the credit and extend the taxes, but districts can’t count on that now.

So they’re slashing because their reserves are disappearing, and they can’t assume on any extra revenue at least for two or three more years. Going into next year, San Jose Unified, calculates it faces an ongoing cut from thee years ago of about 22 percent.

That is not protecting K-12 education.

In the PPIC poll, voters talk out of both  sides of the mouths. That’s nothing new. Sixty percent, including a majority of Democrats, said that, in general, state government could spend less and still provide the same level of services.  Only about one out of six adults understands that, at about 40 percent, K-12 and community college spending is the largest source of spending, by far, in the state budget. (Most Californians assume it’s the prisons, whose budget they want cut.)

But Californians know what they see, and they are witnessing a dismantling of their public schools. And  the PPIC poll says they say they’re willing to pay more to stop that, even in this recession.

By John Fensterwald on January 28th, 2010