SACRAMENTO, CA – Assembly Bill 68, by Compton Democrat Mervyn Dymally, would raise the pay of Los Angeles Unified School District board members from $25,092 to $171,648. The hike of more than 650 percent, which would affect only that district, strikes some observers as outrageous, but it is also predictable, understandable and instructive for legislators and taxpayers alike.

An annual salary of $171,648, tied to the pay of Los Angeles City County and Superior Court judges, would boost the L.A. board members beyond the Lieutenant Governorship of California, an office Mr. Dymally held from 1974 to 1978. The 650-percent increase also puts the board members in the neighborhood of Jack O'Connell, state Superintendent of Public Instruction, who is paid $175,525. He had no comment on the proposed raise to Jim Sanders, the Sacramento Bee reporter who authored the only news story on this measure, released just before a holiday weekend, when the bill's author, a former Congressman, doubtless thought nobody would notice. 

The raise certainly exceeds inflation, and changes longstanding policy. California limits compensation for board members, an elected office in the public service. Such service has never been construed as a professional office to be sought primarily for big bucks. More important, the proposed mega-raise would also be unrelated to performance issues.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is one of the worst in the state. In test results for 2005-06 cited by the Bee, only 38 percent of students in the LAUSD are proficient in math, and only 32 percent are proficient in "language arts," otherwise known as English. In other words, 62 percent of LAUSD students are not proficient in math and 68 percent not proficient in English. Put yet another way, the majority of students in the LAUSD are not proficient in math and English. About 50 percent of students in the district fail to graduate, according to PRI's Lance Izumi.

The LAUSD is not only big, but bloated, with one non-teacher for every teacher. The district is also home to the Belmont Learning Center, the most expensive high school in history at $300 million in recent counts. Unfortunately, no learning has yet to take place there. (See "California Dreamin’," December 13, 2000) The district continued to pour money into the project, now scheduled to open in 2008.

A 650-percent pay raise for LAUSD board members would link the highest pay to low results, the opposite of what should be the case. As it happens, AB 68 is simply a restatement of the single idea of California's education establishment: all problems can be solved with more money. This is false. The establishment has had the money and failed to deliver. 

California's K-12 education works best as a system to redistribute wealth from hardworking taxpayers to those who waste it producing mediocrity and failure. It also works as a hostage system, with government, not parents, deciding where children will attend school, whatever the conditions. If they opt to leave, their money stays in the system. Nothing substantial will change until that dynamic has ended, as it has elsewhere.

This month, Utah adopted the Parent Choice in Education Act, the nation's first universal school choice voucher program, making every public-school student eligible for a voucher worth $500 to $3000, depending on income. Students entering kindergarten and private-school students from low-income families are also eligible.

Parental choice in education was the favorite cause of the late Milton Friedman, a hero to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who proclaimed January 29 "Milton Friedman Day." A better response would be to champion school choice, the cause the Nobel laureate held dear. The governor would also do well to veto Assembly Bill 68, the latest but surely not last attempt to reward failure with yet more taxpayer dollars.

K. Lloyd Billingsley is Editorial Director at the Pacific Research Institute. He can be reached via email at lbillingsley@pacificresearch.org.