Jan Resseger provides a valuable context for understanding the dismal state of public schools in California. They were once the envy of the nation, but now they are desperately underfunded.
She writes that the bottom line is the urgent need for a 38 percent increase in California school spending—an additional $25.6 billion—with much of the greatest need in the schools serving California’s poorest students—many of them English language learners. Those numbers are essential background for understanding this month’s teachers’ strike in Los Angeles.
California spends somewhat less per pupil than the national average. It spends about the same as South Carolina and Louisiana, which is shocking when you consider that California is the richest state in the nation.
Spending by states:
States that spend more than California:
Alaska, NY, CONN, Maine, Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Penn, RI, Vermont, Wyoming.
Tied with:
Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin.
Spends more than:
Alabama, Az, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, S Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah.
Lowest spending state: Utah and Idaho
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They cant sell people 3rd rate schools unless they destroy the 1st rate schools people once had.
https://truthout.org/articles/teachers-are-rising-up-to-resist-neoliberal-attacks-on-education/
From the local news articles I’ve seen, Utah is back at 51st for per-pupil spending, after besting Idaho last. year. You should SEE the overcrowded schools and ludicrous class sizes. Teaching is mostly about crowd control in Utah.
On the California ballot in 2020 will be a very important initiative to close the corporate tax loopholes in Prop 13. It will likely be endorsed by the governor, the mayor of Los Angeles, and even by LAUSD. That will be huge, but still not enough. The tide turned this week, though.
Hey, as a quick aside, I heard from someone close to the bargaining team that Beutner doesn’t understand the finer points of district finances, and that every time he walked into the bargaining session, his own team groaned. Ha!
I wish someone better with numbers than I am could separate the various state and local district spending that goes to pay the cost of educating students each year (i.e. current teaching and administrative and other staff) from the spending that goes to 1. pay pensions of retired teachers because the pension fund was underfunded for a decade or more and 2. pay to service debt for capital projects and other borrowing.
How often do we now include in “per pupil” spending all kinds of historical costs that should be accounted for in a completely separate budget?
Do per pupil budgets for public schools include thousands of dollars to service historical debt because of poor management of expenses?
And is the burden of paying for that historical debt only added to public school per pupil allocations, while students in charter schools have a per pupil allocation that can be used exclusively for their current school year expenses?
And what happens as the percentage of students who have to pay for historical debt gets smaller and smaller, and the percentage of students who don’t have to pay for that debt gets larger and larger? That results in an ever-increasing financial burden on fewer and fewer students where a smaller and smaller percentage of their per pupil allocation is available to spend on their current year expenses.
NYCPSP,
If you look at some of the major “rustbelt” cities, you can see the answer to your question about what happens when a smaller and smaller tax base has to pay for historical debt obligations like pensions. Detroit had a population of 1.8 million people in the 1950’s and had a population of teachers consistent with that of a large city. By 2010, the population of Detroit had dropped to 700,000, but they had a population or retired teachers (and others of course) consistent with a city of 1.8 million people.
It makes sense to use a defined contribution retirement system. The total expense of hiring a worker occurs in the year worked and the workers are not subject to wage theft when they leave employment before vesting.
To Teachers, Parents, Students, ans Public education Supporters:
The following information is taken from many guru veteran and retired teachers whom I could NOT be able to memorize as much as possible. Of course, everyone know our beloved Dr. Ravitch, and all active contributors between January 17 and 22, like: IRA SHOR, AlwaysLearning, NYC public school parent, retired teacher …
Teachers, Parents, Students, and PUBLIC EDUCATION supporters must be much more politically engaged and must show YOUR DECISIVE MIND in the upcoming ELECTION 2020 by demanding of those running for office as follows:
*** Three mantras which are for all conscientious citizens who love peace on earth, will definitely will always be:
1) to maintain AMERICA DEMOCRACY
= Every child in the US is entitled to a free public education
2) to STOP THE LOOTING and the bleeding OF AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION from PRIVATIZATION.
= those CORRUPTED corporate RUIN and DESTROY CITIZENS and COUNTRY regardless what country, what races, what education background, what cultures, what family roots and what party those corrupted corporate and authorities come from.
3) Politicians of all parties must unite in an agreement to STRONGLY protect PUBLIC EDUCATION AT K-12 SYSTEM with wrap around services.
= all young AMERICAN GENERATIONS are the REAL PILLARS of our DEMOCRACY.
VI) YES, YES, YES:
1) Teachers should also actively work to ensure that any Democrats running for president support public education. Education must be an issue in 2020
2) Don’t expect co-opted Democrats like Corey Booker, Andrew Cuomo, Jerry Brown, or Joe Manchin to be critical of non-profit charters (or, as the co-opted Democrats like to call them, “public charters”).
3) Parents MUST be able to exercise choice WITHIN the public school system — NOT OUTSIDE OF IT because we should be a firm believer that the public school system is one of the real pillars of our democracy and it is a path for opportunity.
4) UTLA should have specified AN EXACT LIMIT by the numbers on charters that restricts their looting of public schools and their dispossession of public teachers and students from taxpayer funded school spaces.
5) UTLA should have explicitly demanded the MAX NUMBER for each class.
V) Last but not least, all corporate, pharmaceutical industry, technology manufacturers, banking industry, insurance industry, oil and gas industry, and all entertainment industry, the owner must pay:
1) MUST PAY TAX 70% AFTER THEIR MAXIMUM EARNING INCOME CAP AT 10,000,000 US DOLLARS.
2) MUST PAY their EMPLOYEES PROPERLY HEALTHCARE BENEFITS AND INSURANCE.
Please note that the 70% income tax is to maintain highway, ocean which are eroded and polluted by all bad industries; to maintain hospital to cure all additive symptoms which are caused by bad business like brothel house about HIV or sexual transmitted diseases, alcohol, gambling, smoke drug like cocaine or marijuana, Oxycontin…And most of all, to maintain democracy by educating all children in America so that whenever these unfortunate children reach their maturity and able to work, to serve and to protect America, and mankind within their talents and skills. Back2basic