by Lance T. Izumi, Fellow in California Studies
Pacific Research Institute
August 1997

Announcer lead: Time for Perspectives. Lance Izumi says that misprioritized spending has caused a textbook shortage in California.

Are we spending our education tax dollars efficiently and effectively? Not according to a recent front-page report in the Los Angeles Times on the massive textbook shortage in California.

The Times found legions of Los Angeles-area students who spend valuable classroom time reading and copying from shared sets of class textbooks. Homework is either not assigned or has little value because students don't have textbooks to take home. Many students are forced to make due with obsolete social science texts published when Richard Nixon was still president. Exasperated parents often end up buying textbooks for their children even though the state constitution guarantees a free textbook for every student.

This is a case, not of lack of money, but of mismanagment of money. Through its special-interest categorical programs, Sacramento has forced local schools to spend education dollars according to its priorities, not according to local needs. For instance, not only does the state spend more on its special education, desegregation and preschool development programs than on its textbook program, there's also little flexibility to move money around to address pressing needs. In describing the budget of one California high school, the Times noted that "there is abundant money for anti-poverty programs and bilingual programs -- none of which can be spent on textbooks."

Local officials have also hurt students by funneling what money they do control into salaries and benefits for school union members. The Times reports that 87 percent of classroom expenditures in Los Angeles go into salaries and benefits.

What would help? Block granting state money to local schools would increase flexibility. Also, we should increase the number of deregulated public charter schools, which have the freedom to shift resources to high priority needs. Finally, school vouchers would not only allow students to escape a public education system that is shortchanging them, they would put competitive pressure on the system to improve. Without such pressure, don't expect things to change.

With a perspective, I'm Lance Izumi.