There are plenty of considerations, from each candidate’s background and voting record to their plans for dealing with the California malaise of budget shortfalls and low-ranking schools. California is now ranked 49 out of 50 states on standardized tests, and the choice of governor could make a big impact on California’s future performance.

Here’s how the candidates stand on public education. First, Meg Whitman.

Cutting administrative positions

A visit to the Meg Whitman website’s education center is a visit to a vast wasteland devoid of plans and specifics. Consistent with her “run the state like a business” she plans to cut education spending on administration, and basically ignores the key consideration: whether education funding will actually increase or decrease. Her claim of increased instructional spending is as fictional as it is rhetorical.

First, because of Whitman’s general claims on government spending it is evident that education will be a prime target for job cuts, which can’t help be instructional personnel if she keeps her campaign pledge. One of Whitman’s budget proposals is to trim the state workforce by 40,000 workers, exempting the University of California system, corrections, and public safety. Most of what is left to cut is education, health, and human services. (Michael Reich, Prof, University California.) It is hard to imagine how Ms. Whitman expects to avoid cutting teachers from classrooms. There simply are not that many administrative positions to cut.

First, to increase the allocation to instruction, Whitman plans to cut “overhead” in education spending. Whitman asserts that there is 40 percent overhead in education. Whitman relies on a faulty statistic that claims that only 60 percent of funds are being spent on classroom instruction, implying some massive overhead that does not exist. Meg Whitman’s 60% figure probably comes from Digest of Education Statistics for 2009.

This is interesting as it is deceptive. The 60% figure represents the cost of “instruction” while the rest is “support services.” However, those support services include instructional staff, student support (health, attendance, and speech pathology services,) operations and maintenance, transportation, other support services, food services, enterprise operations (including computer labs, bookstores,) and “other expenditures” (including adult education, community colleges and private school programs separately funded.) In 2009 only 6.2% of K-12 education expenditures were school and general administrative expenses.

As a measure, instructional spending is a poor substitute for per pupil comparisons. California is ranked dead last in the country in per teacher student ratios, with 21.3 students per teacher in 2009-10, whereas the national average is 13.8. California Budget Project, June 2010. Ironically, the percentage figure would be even more in favor of “overhead” but for the fact that teacher salaries are higher, on average, in California, $70,458 in 2009-10, than nationally ($55,350). California Budget Project, June 2010.

The truth is that the amount of spending on true administration is miniscule compared to other state’s expenditures. In 2008 California ranked 46th in the nation in the number of students per administrator,

with 358 students per administrator compared to the national average of 216. (California Budget Project, June 2010.)

Further, California’s 60 percent expenditure allocation is not out of line with other states. In fact it is about average. The national average is 61%, and California ranks 27th.

The question isn’t whether you can alter the 60% figure, but whether you alter it by increasing the amount spent on instruction. Whitman can increase the ratio of instructional spending and increase the percentage spent on instruction without spending a dime more on instructional related activities.

It is not clear whether Whitman believes in or intends to increase spending in the classroom, lower class sizes, or other direct instructional change. The only clear implication is that she intends to cut the 40 percent figure to help balance the budget.

Fewer categorical grants

Her second position is to change grant system from categorical grants to simplified grants for Special Education, rewarding outstanding teachers and schools and other programs that contribute to greater student achievement. Remaining amounts are to go into a block grant. This will allow local control.

The key part of this plan is that she plans to institute merit pay for teachers. Merit pay has its benefits, but it usually relies on standardized testing, forcing teachers to continue to teach to the test. Other methods of evaluating teacher performance may be suggested down the line, but have not been specified by the Whitman campaign.

It too does not mean any more money for teachers.

Grades for schools/Charter Schools

Provide grades for schools like Florida so that you can switch schools. Failing schools are not automatically replaced with good schools. She asserts that allowing the schools to be converted to charter schools will address the issue.

First, fleeing the sinking ship approach leaves schools in worse positions in the most difficult situations and hardest to educate students. The remaining schools do not get the resources necessary to improve, and are often viewed as lost causes.

Second, charter and magnet schools are no panacea. According to the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University study “there is a wide variance in the quality of the nation’s several thousand charter schools with, in the aggregate, students in charter schools not faring as well as students in traditional public schools.”

Charter schools can succeed or fail, just like public schools; a charter school with a mediocre teaching staff, difficult students, and uninvolved parents will not be any better than a public school with the same problem. Rather, charter schools often draw in the best staff and most competitive students, giving them a deceptive advantage in performance.

Jerry Brown’s eight-page education plan is also somewhat sparse on specifics in areas, but does outline some similarities and differences with the Whitman plan.

Charter schools

Brown is also a supporter of charter schools, having even founded two in Oakland. The Oakland Military Institute and the Oakland School for the Arts follow the charter school mold of college readiness, and Brown’s site boasts that they are two of the highest performing schools in Oakland; it should be noted, however, that Oakland’s public schools are low-ranking even within the state of California.

Higher education

To address the rising costs of higher education in California, Brown proposes convening a state representative group to come up with a new “Master Plan” similar to that of the 1960s. He also supports blocking major expansions of prison spending to allocate more funding for education. Another method he listed for keeping costs down in college was the internet, the introduction of online learning and the use of new technologies should be explored to the fullest (Education Plan)

How effective that would be remains to be seen. One study conducted by the Alliance for CME showed that, “Based on a post-test, participants in the former study had very good knowledge in some areas but not others; all participants either agreed or strongly agreed that their knowledge had increased, and the self reflective activity revealed an impact on clinical practice.” The study concluded that more research is needed to improve the interactivity of online lessons, determine the ideal class size in online courses, and address the problems of those less willing to interact.

The final point for higher education was a focus on community colleges, and easing the transfer process from community colleges to California State Universities and the UC system.

Cutting categorical grants

Like his opponent, Brown proposes to cut categorical grants, as he stated in the most recent Gubernatorial debate.

"Alright here's what it [the funding process] does, we have lots of problems, 60 different programs they call categorical programs because they fit into different categories," Brown said. “"And then have a formula by which if there are a lot of poor children they get a little more if you have an area where you don't have a lot of college graduates among the family they get a little more.”

Brown's 8 page plan also targets English Language Learners; the state has a large population of students learning English as a second language, and often struggling to do so, and in this instance he proposes increasing after school and summer programs. He also proposes a number of philosophical arguments in favor of changing the state's model of education.

The idea that schools teach to the test rather than embracing critical thinking, leaving subjects not on the state standards by the wayside, has been brought up before, and does bear some merit. Schools scramble for money rather than a well-rounded education. On the bright side, with the new national standards in place, states are no longer allowed to lower their standards instead of raising their performance, which can only benefit students in the long run.

But it's one thing to point out that science and creativity are abandoned in favor of math and reading, and another to propose specific legislation as to how to fix those problems, and Brown only does the former. He supports increasing focus on math, technology, and engineering, which is good. As a technology school, Foothill is somewhat ahead of the national curve on integrating technology and multimedia in our courses, but if we want to be competitive globally in high technology, our public schools should prepare students.

Conclusions

Brown and Whitman do share some similar ideas: both favor cutting categorical grants and establishing more magnet or charter schools in the state. However, in the end Brown comes out ahead. True, his plan does lack many specifics on planning. Identifying the dropout crisis – California's graduation rate is currently 68%, a D+ in any public school – and proposing specific legislation designed to combat it are two different things. However, despite a lack of specifics, Brown's education plan is a much better option than Whitman's, which actively misinterprets data. A large part of her budgetary promises on education hinge on the percentage of overhead she aims to cut, which is a misrepresentation of the actual data.

Most voters will probably vote on other issues. They'll stick with their party lines and vote for the liberal or conservative candidate accordingly, or else vote on social issues or taxation. Issues that drive the American middle class. But for anyone involved with or directly affected by public education, it should be a deciding factor.

The state is dangling at the precipice on education, hovering at 49 out of 50 in education performance. The budget is a quagmire, and our own district is already bringing in furlough days to make up for their shortfalls. All politics and pandering aside, forget the slogans for jobs or taxation, someone in power needs to take a serious look at California's public education.