California punishes school kids to balance budget, groups say
Courthouse News Service
California makes "absolutely no attempt" to see that its school funding is adequate to meet the goals it claims to have set, nor even to determine how much that would cost, nor to provide school districts with the money they need to do it, 60 students, nine school districts and parents, school boards and administrators say. "Just to reach the national average, California would need an additional 104,000 teachers," according to the constitutional complaint in Alameda County Court. "(T)he state violates the constitutional requirement that it shall 'first set apart' the funding necessary to support the education program," the plaintiffs say, citing the California Constitution. "Far from making education its first priority, in recent years the state has cut school funding as a primary means to balance its budget. (more...)