EDUCATION NEEDS ADEQUATE FINANCING THIRTY YEARS OF UNDERFUNDING HAS SERIOUSLY ERODED OUR SCHOOLS.

Byline: Jeannie Oakes

GOV. Arnold Schwarzenegger's heated rhetoric during his State of the State speech won't help California's real spending problem in education. Thirty years of serious underfunding has eroded our educational system. Fifty billion dollars simply isn't enough to educate 6 million K-12 students and another 1.5 million in community colleges.

The governor's condemnation came on the same day the respected Education Week released data showing that only seven states spend less per student than California does. Low-income states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky and Louisiana spend more per pupil than California, and those with comparably high costs of living - New York and New Jersey, for example - spend as much as $4,000 more.

It's not that we can't afford more. California is well above the national average in ability to pay. We rank eighth in personal income, and have far more millionaires than any other state.

Most of the schools that middle-class California parents believe are ``better'' actually provide fewer resources than schools attended by the average American child. In fact, more than 99 percent of California students are in school districts with funding below the national average.

What California spends on education bears no relationship to what it takes to operate schools. Cost estimates never even enter the mix. The bulk of districts' money comes as ``revenue limits,'' and each district's own ``limit'' (there are more than 1,000 such limits in the state) is based on what it was spending in the 1970s (yes, the 1970s!) and on what it has been able to negotiate since.

On top of that, the state puts about a third of its education dollars into a maze of 120 or so separate pots of ``categorical'' funding - each with separate eligibility requirements and restricted uses. Districts that master the application process, often with help from well-paid strategists, are able to grab far more funds than other, poorer districts, even if their needs don't truly match the programs' priorities. Oversight is spotty and evaluation rare.

California's Serrano case in the 1970s was supposed to guarantee funding equality, but gross disparities persist. In 2003, districts' ``revenue limits'' ranged from $4,345 to more than $8,200 a student. For example, the Elk Grove and Oakland districts - with approximately 50,000 students each - have revenue limits of $3,488 and $2,783, respectively. Why? Elk Grove gets almost $8 million extra from a meals-for-disadvantaged-children allocation, compared with Oakland's $750,000.

Making matters worse, wealthier districts have an easier time than poorer districts passing local parcel tax increases and generating private donations. According to the Education Trust, California districts with the highest percentage of minority students have $500 less to spend per pupil each year than districts with the fewest minority students. That's a $10,000 difference for a primary classroom of 20 students, and $17,500 in the middle- or high-school class of 35 each year.

Is a solution in sight?

The recent Rand report on education notes optimistically, ``Coming up with more effective solutions will be the central charge of the new bipartisan California State Quality of Education Commission.'' The QEC's goal is to ``square our school accountability system with a new finance system that together provide the incentives and resources schools really need to help all California students meet the state performance standards.'' Funded by the Gates and Hewlett Foundations, the QEC wouldn't cost the state a dime.

In at least 30 states, such groups have developed funding models based on what it really costs to provide students with a quality education. California's QEC could similarly pave the way for adequate, rational and equitable school funding. Now, however, its very existence is in doubt. The QEC is likely to be one of the ``unnecessary boards and commissions'' that Schwarzenegger intends to wipe out.

Education overspending is not the problem; neither are teachers. Last summer, the governor was rightfully outraged that many California schools lack even the basics - teachers, books and decent facilities - when he agreed to settle the Williams v. California lawsuit. However, if Schwarzenegger really wants ``government that encourages the dreams of the people,'' he must face the economic realities of what good education costs and craft a finance system that gets those resources to California's children.