California's Children

Realignment & timed-out fosters: hearings today on welfare trailer

Today, May 24, Room 112, Capitol Bldg., Sacramento. Agenda available here. Staff contact is Jennifer Troia, 916-319-2089.

The Senate Budget Subcommittee #3, chaired by state Senator Mark DeSaulnier, at left, will discuss the Child Welfare Services Realignment trailer bill language, including giving counties the "option" to implement the THP-Plus Foster Care program, a transitional housing program for "timed out" foster kids, ages 18-21 (See below for background story).

30,000 kids dumped from early ed w/May revise cuts

May 22, 2012: If the $517 million in cuts to early education -- proposed in Governor Brown's "May revise" to the California 2012-13 budget -- are enacted by the Legislature, approximately 30,000 children living in California's lowest-income families will no longer have access to early education programs. (In the past four years, early ed has taken a 42% hit -- nearly $1 billion.)

According to Giuliana Halasz, above, CEO of the Professional Association for Childhood Education Alternative Payment Program (PACEAPP):

 "These cuts will also drive many small [early education] centers out of business, resulting in more than just a business closing: [these changes remove] a child care infrastructure that will be difficult and costly to replace...Early childhood education adds 200,000 jobs and $11 billion to California's economy. This proposal is a job killer for the clients we serve. Women are the losers here. They are a majority of the clients, small business owners and teachers. Governor Brown's drastic budget cuts are a direct attack on our children and their future..."

Also included in the May revise is the Governor's proposal to move administration of subsidized child care from the Dept. of Education to the Dept. of Social Services, essentially gutting the early education component of the program and reducing it to a babysitting service. [Full disclosure: California's Children is sponsored by Human Services Management Corporation, a San Francisco-based company that administers the PACE Alternative Payment Program. The editor of this site, Wendy Lestina, has been an advocate for early education in low-income neighborhoods in California for nearly 50 years.]

May revise, Part 5: CalWORKs CDE to DSS shift maintained

UPDATE, May 15, 2012: Disconcerting for early education professionals studying the Governor's May revision to the 2012-13 budget is the retention -- despite prior Legislative Analyst's Office and State Assembly rejections (see prior stories below) -- of the shift of administration of the CalWORKs program from the Dept. of Education (CDE) to the Dept. of Social Services (DSS) and county welfare departments.

UPDATE, March 16, 2012: Following the recommendation of the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) -- see story below, the Assembly Budget Subcommittees on Education Finance and Health & Human Services, in a joint hearing, voted March 15 to reject Governor Brown's proposed restructuring of the system that would have included moving child care and development programs from the Dept. of Education (CDE) to the Dept. of Social Services (DSS) and county welfare departments. 

UPDATE, February 28, 2012: In a report to the legislature last week, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) recommended that the shift of administrative responsibilities for subsidized child care be abandoned by the Governor in order to focus on more effective, cost-reducing priorities. From the report, issued Wednesday, February 22:

Brown will reveal add'tl deep cuts to CA ed, social programs today

May 14, 2012: "Disappointing revenue collections" in April have increased the state's shortfall from the projected $9.2 billion to $16 billion, Governor Jerry Brown announced -- in a YouTube video -- over the weekend. The announcement, considered to be a strong campaign effort for Brown's proposed tax increases, sets the tone for the "May revise" of the 2012-13 California Budget,  LIVE TODAY ON THE CALIFORNIA CHANNEL AT 10 a.m.

Three weeks ago, Brown predicted "howls of execration" over additional cuts he would be making in the May revise -- and that was based on what he said was a "$1 billion or maybe more" shortfall above the estimated $9.2 billion for which extensive cuts had already been announced.

The Los Angeles Times reported this morning:

...budget negotiations will begin in earnest [toeday, when May revise is announced] to try to meet the June 15 deadline for passage of a new fiscal plan, which Brown is scheduled to release at a 10 a.m. Sacramento news conference.

Brown's proposal has been a tightly guarded secret, but observers are expecting deep cuts in social services. The administration has warned state employee unions that payroll will be reduced. And the governor will assume that part of the deficit will be closed by tax hikes he is asking voters to approve in November.

His spending plan will include "trigger cuts" to some of the most politically popular programs -- including K-12 schools -- that will kick in if voters reject the initiative to increase the sales tax by a quarter of a cent and levies on those making more than $250,000 annually by 1 to 3 percentage points. The taxes could bring in as much as $9 billion in the upcoming fiscal year.

As reported by Adam Nagourney in the New York Times:

...[Brown] aggressively accounted for the steps he said he had taken to try to scale back a $26 billion deficit he found upon taking office. And he urged viewers to back an initiative he is putting on the November ballot that would increase sales taxes by 0.25 percent and impose an income tax surcharge on wealthy Californians to try to stave off more cuts.

State officials said Mr. Brown’s proposal would include a package of immediate cuts, as well as others that would be triggered only if voters failed to approve his tax plan. The sales tax increase would expire after four years, while the income tax surcharge would last for seven years.

... “We are still recovering from the worst recession since the 1930s,” Mr. Brown said.

 

PACE assessment of K-12: "small progress" but best yet to come

May 4, 2012: The Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), an independent research center led by David Plank, at left, based at Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Univ. of Southern California, presented its latest findings from an assessment of the K-12 public schools at a seminar in Sacramento yesterday for educational policy makers and scholars.

The report, “Getting Down to Facts-Five Years Later,” is follow-up assessment based on the Getting Down to Facts project by the Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice (IRREP) at Stanford, a research project involving 32 institutions based on the underlying premise that improvement of the K-12 financing and governance structure would enable schools to be more effective.

The latest report, introduced by Susanna Loeb, director of IREPP, focuses on 4 key issues identified in the Getting Down to Facts project: finances, governance, data systems and personnel issues. Its findings, from 2007-2011, detail  "small progress in the face of persistent as well as unanticipated challenges like the recession", but the authors note that "issues raised in the previous reports  have penetrated policy discussions and there are indications that greater improvements may come."

The seminar was led by Dan Schnur, professor at UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies and director of USC's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, with discussion on the results of an online poll conducted by the USC Rossier School of Education on education reform, funding and taxes.

Among the key findings:(from the UC Berkeley release)

• The California general fund spending on education is down 15% by the end of the last decade compared to its peak in 2007-2008.
• A series of proposals are circulating to make education finance more flexible, including plans for a weighted formula to allow adjustments for schools’ special or differing needs.
• The state’s education system is heavy on compliance and complexity, but light on data collection that could lead to improvements. However, California’s Longitudinal Student Data System (CALPADS) has been running for two years, conducting detailed analyses of student learning as well as accurate measures of dropout and graduation rates.
• State budget cuts have led to layoffs and reduced staff development, but the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing has upped its oversight of teacher education programs.
• While educational governance at all levels remains weak, improvements include: increased resource control for local authorities; more federal support through the Race to the Top initiative and stimulus/innovation funding; elimination of the state Office of the Secretary of Education to avoid duplication; and successful local initiatives to increase district accountability, flexibility and transparency and develop new ways to evaluate, compensate and support teachers

The investigators: Richard O. Welsh and Dominic J. Brewer (USC), Heather Rose, (UC Davis), Jennifer Imazeki (San Diego State University), and Plank.

PACE, founded in 1983, bridges the gap between research and policy, working with scholars from California’s leading universities and with state and local policy-makers to increase the impact of academic research on educational policy in California.

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.