Take a moment to understand California's troubles.
It is much worse, and more interesting, than merely a budget shortfall.
Below are three interrelated, true stories.
Story 1: Drama at the CSU
California has a three-tier college system. The University of California (10 campuses, including UCLA and UC Berkeley) is a world-class research institution, serving the top 10% of students. The AA degrees are issued by a huge California Community College system that provides the typical mix of vocational and continuing education, only on a massive scale, with over 100 colleges and nearly 3 million students. In the middle is the California State University, which grants most of the state's four-year degrees, and describes itself thus:
"With 23 campuses, almost 450,000 students, and 48,000 faculty and staff, we are the largest, the most diverse, and one of the most affordable university systems in the country. We offer unlimited opportunities to help students achieve their goals. We prepare graduates who go on to make a difference in the workforce. We engage in research and creative activities leading to scientific, technical, artistic and social advances. And we play a vital role in the growth and development of California's communities and economy."
The New York Times has wept repeatedly for UC Berkeley, a darling of the elite class, but shutting down the CalState system will cause much more widespread hardship. CSU already has, along with faculty furloughs and class reductions, slashed admissions by 20,000, despite rising applications.
The CSU administrators threaten worse to come. Last month Chancellor Reed, CSU's CEO, said that if every CSU faculty member would teach just one additional class each semester, the system could realize some amazing efficiencies. This is of course true of any business -- things would improve tremendously if the employees would work 25% or 33% longer for no additional pay, find another few hours per day, or switch to a seven-day work week. Even bigger efficiency savings might result from firing senior executives who spout nonsense.
If the desired faculty efficiencies do not materialize, the CSU administrators are ready with their plans for the next phase. Here is how it sounds in pristine Biz-Speak, from an October 2, 2009, memo authored by CSU Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer Benjamin Quillian:
"...It will be necessary to change radically business processes and service delivery systems so that personnel costs and other expenditures can be reduced significantly on an ongoing basis... the budget reduction strategies must yield a fundamental transformation of the ways we meet the needs of our students, faculty and staff..."
"Restructuring" and "transformation" are the words of the day, because, the administrators tell their speechless wards, the CSU can no longer count on state funding, the state can no longer afford to offer higher education to most of its citizens, and the CSU needs to rely much more heavily on private funding sources such as philanthropists and tuition.
If you find this proposal shocking, it's for a simple reason: a public university that cannot rely on public funding, but instead must rely on private funding, is not a public university but a private university. The proposal being floated is being denounced as "privatization" of the CSU, but it's probably more accurate to refer to the proposal as for shutting down the CSU, destroying much of California's public higher education system, and damaging what remains.
Story 2: Funding Early Childhood Education
I will argue later that California doesn't actually have a money shortage at all, but for this story let's accept the common assumption that there is no longer enough money in the state to fund the standard of living to which Californians have become accustomed.
A good part of the solution would be to replace the missing funds with funds from other sources, like federal funds. For example, the federal government provides challenge grants to states to fund early childhood education. If the state were to qualify for those grants, some of the budget cuts to early childhood education programs could be avoided.
But the federal government has standards. States cannot qualify to receive early childhood funds unless the state's child care licensing meets certain thresholds. For example, facilities need to be inspected occasionally to ensure compliance with safety and health regulations.
However, California already gutted its child care licensing compliance program during prior budget challenges, so child care facilities frequently go years without an inspection -- some facilities have not been reviewed in more than a decade. As a result, California does not qualify to receive the federal funds.
The budget cuts to the child care quality assurance system that must have seemed penny-wise at the time have proved to be pound-foolish in retrospect.
Story 3: Supporting Our Troops.
A problem analogous to the federal early childhood education grants faces military personnel seeking to simply pay for child care. The service personnel are entitled to stipends to cover the cost of child care, but only in properly licensed facilities. California's failure to provide an adequate licensing system prevents the service families from finding a qualified facility for which they could be reimbursed.
Despite this frustration, military personnel are something of an exception to the normal rules. They are not getting laid off or furloughed. Their CEO is not asking them to work 33% longer for 10% less pay. The government thinks that military kids (but, strangely, not the rest of the nation's children) should have subsidized child care from high quality facilities.
And yet, despite the critical importance of the national defense mission, politicians of all stripes seem content to continue with a risky, inefficient, socialized military, rather than an efficient, free-market solution. One example of the peril is that military wages are not set by the market, thus depriving the country of the best soldiers. Another is that there is no profit motive to ensure sustained effort over time.
Analysis.
The theme uniting these stories is Lies. It is simply a lie that California cannot afford to educate its citizens. There is as much or more wealth in California than ever. No one would deny the extraordinary economic success of (for example) the high tech industry in the north or the entertainment industry in the south.
After years of tax reductions, and especially tax reductions for the wealthy, such as corporate income tax reductions, continued refusal to tax oil extraction, and the complete elimination of the inheritance tax, a budget crisis has emerged. But the budget crisis is man-made, not a natural disaster, and not the result of the business cycle. All the money that used to fund California's parks, beaches, roads, hospitals, and schools is still there, approximately where it always was. But California's citizens are told that "the money isn't there" and that "there is no choice."
California needs executive officers, administrators, legislators, and media willing to tell the truth that cutting maintenance budgets, regulatory watch dogs, preventive services, and education ends up costing more in the long run. They need to say that the state's public education system was put in place for a good reason, and that dismantling it creates a sinful legacy, and a betrayal of the people. They must not use the vocabulary of corporate deceit -- "restructuring," "efficiency," "lean" -- to conceal the viciousness of their destruction of or theft of public resources.
And finally, California needs politicians who will acknowledge that if public service is noble and to be celebrated and compensated for those in the military, then so is it noble and to be compensated for teachers, park rangers, fire fighters, professors, librarians, sewer workers, bus drivers, garbage collectors, and everyone else who works for the rest of us.
Low tax states like Alabama, Mississippi, and New Mexico have proven that private capital does not deploy its tax savings to build public infrastructure even comparable to, let alone better and more efficient than, that which the government would create for its people. California has proved that when a state that used to invest heavily in itself stops doing so, it can rapidly turn the world's best education system into one of the nation's worst, starting a vicious cycle that will eventually drive people, business, and money out of the state, leaving everyone worse off.
How shocking and difficult would it be to find the money to once again invest in California? Imagine the shock that would accompany this headline: "Obama to Send 30,000 Educators to California."
We could just do it.
[Cross-posted at Docudharma]