Steve Lopez of the LA Times relays the sad news that the once univerally admired California college and university system has fallen apart so much that parent’s are sending their children out of state, and current college students sometimes can’t graduate because so many classes have been cancelled.
You cannot fix any of this in a state more inclined to build prisons than schools, despite projections of a huge shortage of college-educated workers by 2025. You can’t fix it when you’re the only major oil-producing state with no excise tax, and you refuse to correct the huge property tax advantage Proposition 13 extended to corporations. You can’t fix it without modest concessions from public employees, including teachers, on pensions and benefits.
Public employees, including teachers should not have to concede anything. This problems was caused by big corporations and the rich and they should pay for it in its entirety. Until people force this corrective action by voting for real liberals (and hoping those votes get counted), this will not change.
They shouldn’t have to but may have to anyway. The unfunded public pension liability in California is beyond anything the state can pay.
I know! Let’s just relabel our schools and call them jails. The conservatives will then be happy to fund them.
In Utah, public high schools are open and friendly looking. In Los Angeles, they look like prisons.
They are also staffed like prisons, no? And have metal detectors.