San Diego Union Tribune, January 27, 2009

I was going to do a post dissecting the CTA's absurd radio ads claiming that schools had faced billions of dollars in cuts in recent years -- not true -- and saying state schools had the worst funding in the nation -- not true. But Vicki Murrary of the Pacific Research Institute beat me to it, so I won't double up on her work:

State and national experts agree that California is about average when it comes to school spending--including the CTA's own parent organization, the National Education Association, which ranks California in 25th place nationally. As U.S. Department of Education statistician Frank Johnson cautions, "California per-pupil funding is near the middle [nationally]. Some people are presenting data in a way that supports their (political) views."

The CTA's latest media blitz is a dishonest defense of a dysfunctional monopoly for which no amount of money, it seems, will ever be enough. Constructive policy recommendations, not scare tactics, are the first step to improving education quality for all students. ...

Total public school funding from all state, local, and federal sources is much more, increasing to almost $70 billion in real inflation-adjusted terms from the 2003-04 school year to the 2006-07 school year. That's nearly a 10-percent funding increase at a time when statewide enrollment decreased more than 30,000 students.