Budget Cuts Strike Education Again

Recently, the State of California discovered that the money it thought it had in it's other pair of pants had been stolen by George Bush and spent. At least they think it was George Bush. Lord knows he's responsible for everything else that's going wrong. Now they're faced with a $2B $6B $12B $14B deficit and they need to cut spending. Where are they going to cut? Why education, of course.

The Governor’s proposed 2008-2009 budget contains disastrous cuts to education and children’s program*...The proposed budget would make across-the-board cuts to education, health care and other programs that have a direct impact on the safety and well being of California’s children.

Here in San Diego, the student-public education employee ratio is dangerously high. There are 135,000 public school students and only 14,555 public school employees. That's a 9.3 - 1 ratio. There's no way anyone can expect to get things done with that kind of overcrowding. The 2006-7 budget was a paltry $2.2B. That works out to only $16,296 per student. In a class of 20, that's only $325,925. Now I ask you, what can be done with only $326,000? Not much.

After buying a Lotus Exige for each classroom, there's only $226,000 left.
Won't anyone think of the children?

* - Where the heck else are they going to cut other than the social programs? It's a state, for cryin' out loud. Social programs are the only things they spend money on, other than basic services. Maybe the Teachers Union thinks California is building it's own aircraft carrier or something.