The Orange County Register reports the Anaheim Union High School District Board of Trustees voted to unanimously to ask the City of Anaheim to provide it with an annual subsidy. The resolution was introduced by Trustee Al Jabbar, a Democratic and public employee union activist:
“Therefore, be it resolved that the Anaheim Union High School District requests that the City of Anaheim commit to providing annual financial support through the City’s budget to fund supplemental education programs and services that will further address the significant needs of the youth of the City of Anaheim that are beyond what the public school system can provide.”
This a terrible idea. For starters, the city should not get into the business of subsidizing a public school district. Joint-use of facilities likes parks and playgrounds to provide more recreational opportunities for residents is one thing; it’s common sense. What Jabbar and his fellow trustees are requesting would immediately become an entitlement, one that would be politically difficult, if not impossible, to end if Anaheim found itself in financial need. If the city ever moved to end or reduce such a subvention, the district would respond in classic fashion by cutting popular education programs that make for the best media copy, and mobilize students and their parents to packed council meetings pleading with councilmembers not to end their music program or their field trip budget. Once this camel’s nose gets in the tent, it’s highly unlikely it could ever be pushed out.
It sounds like Jabbar and his fellow trustees are asking for a blank check from the city. What if Anaheim attaches conditions to its funds – conditions the district doesn’t like? Let’s say a future, left-leaning Anaheim City Council counting leftist academic Jose F. Moreno required, as a condition to getting the subsidy, that AUHSD incorporate revisionist historian Howard Zinn’s “America is a bad place” curriculum into its American history courses? Or interfered in personnel negotiations by attaching requirements pertaining to school district wages and working conditions? Jabbar’s proposal is fertile ground for the law of unintended consequences to take root.
The Anaheim Union High School District has the money it has, and should endeavor to be innovative in finding ways to meet its educational mission within its existing revenues rather than looking for an annual handout from the City of Anaheim. Is AUHSD working with other district to lobby for reduction in the state and federal red tape that increases costs and robs the district of flexibility? Has it explored ways to reduce administrative overheard?
If the last several decades of educational policy prove anything, it is that pumping more money into the public school system doesn’t result in better educated kids. The sums going into K-12 education have swelled, and yet the outcomes are relatively flat. Perhaps public education leaders need to ask themselves if there are other, non-monetary measures that can be implemented in order to provide children with the quality education to which they’re entitled. It’s ironic that Jabbar is leading the charge in asking the City of Anaheim to subsidize his district while opposing any reform in the extreme teacher tenure laws that punish children by keeping incompentent teachers in the classroom.
For now, Jabbar’s request appears doomed. Mayor Pro Tem Lucille Kring and Councilwoman Kris Murray expressed their unequivocal opposition in the OCR article:
Two council members reached Friday said the city and its corporate partners, including Disney, already do their part for the community’s youth in myriad ways, including city funding of parks, libraries and school-safety officers and through various programs.
“I am 100 percent, absolutely against it,” said Councilwoman Lucille Kring. “I cannot believe the school district is asking this.”
Both Kring and Councilwoman Kris Murray noted that California schools have seen an increase in funding in recent years.
“This year was one of the largest increases for public schools on record and next year is anticipated to be at the same level or higher, according to the state Legislative Analyst’s Office,” Murray said.
Murray and Kring are absolutely right, and their points are totally on the mark.
However, as the city council expands to six members (plus the mayor) elected in by-district elections, it will likely be dominated by members governed less by common sense and more by the progressive impulse to “do something” by throwing money at problems and calling it a day.
It’s clear we need more charter schools like the GOALS Academy that can do so much more within their means.
Because well constructed and maintained school buildings allowing the district to focus on education instead of leaky roofs would never produce a “world class city” the way subsidized corporations do! No, we must ensure that the only public funds spent to make Anaheim “better” go to the private sector, God forbid we spend public funds on public benefits like streets, schools, etc.
Shared facilities? Where does this happen? Ask the kids of Anna Drive where they get to use those soccer balls Murray donated. Sycamore Junior High is CLOSED during off hours because the district lacks the funds to have staff on site to open and close the gates. So while Keith Murdock and Charlie Pearson were following best practices in the 50s and 60s by counting school fields as park space during he post war development boom, if the schools cannot afford to open the gates, we end up with neighborhoods seriously lacking in park space (and that is among the more obvious of problems)
Let’s try your theory with a slight change in the beneficiary of the subsidy.
“The Anaheim Union High School District has the money it has, and should endeavor to be innovative in finding ways to meet its educational mission within its existing revenues rather than looking for an annual handout from the City of Anaheim.”
The tourism industry has the money it has, and should endeavor to be innovative in finding ways to meet its profitable mission within its existing revenues rather than looking for an annual handout from the City of Anaheim.
Or how about May 2013 when the Chamber had the nerve to return to Council, hat in hand, demanding MORE money than had been agreed for their contract, because they had underbid/failed to perform basic due diligence in bidding the EnterPrise Zone, and they cry boo hoo…we aren’t making as much as we wanted, give us more for doing the same job…and that was OK. But when the schools find themselves short they are told to “reduce administrative overhead?” Why didn’t the Chamber reduce administrative overhead and live within their budget for the EZ? The hypocrisy over here has hit a whole new high…or a new low?
You are totally OK with taxpayers underwriting a Convention Center to the tune of $500MM, despite the facility already LOSING MONEY, you are OK with kicking back 70% of bed taxes to private hoteliers, and openly endorse a $300MM streetcar for Disney, funded by dinging the working poor who pay a higher percentage of their incomes in gas taxes that translate to Federal transportation dollars, but helping the school district put decent roofs on their buildings is somehow outrageous to you? Oh, wait, if your buddies scored the contracts for those needed improvements all of a sudden this would be a “public private partnership” and “investing in the community” would produce an “employment base” for local residents. But since nobody has figured out how to graft this proposal yet, it is bad.
It takes more than “jobs, jobs, jobs” to make a great city, and frankly part time minimum wage jobs DO NOT make a great city even greater, no matter how many more of those dead end jobs you pump into the system. Get your hands out of my taxpaying pockets on behalf of your buddies and let Anaheim residents focus our resources on the basic infrastructure needed to provide our community with a decent standard of living. Thanks for your concern for Anaheim.
The City of Anaheim is not in the public education business. Public education doesn’t fill within its jurisdiction nor its competence.
The City of Anaheim does own the Anaheim Convention Center. Ensuring it remains competitive is in the city’s interest. Funding its expansion is a legitimate city function. You may disagree with the amount or method or funding, but you cannot dispute that expanding the ACC is legitimately and properly within the city’s jurisdiction. Encouraging economic development is a legitimate city function, and given the city’s decades-long investment in a successful and growing Resort Area, things like the ACC expansion and the Hotel Incentive Policy fall within the legitimate sphere of city action. One can agree or disagree with the wisdom of those policies, but they are properly within the city government’s role.
Maybe you weren’t aware, but cities and school districts do conclude joint use agreements for recreation facilities. There’s nothing wrong with Anaheim working out agreements with school districts to underwrite the opening of school fields and recreational facilities for the use of the general public. That’s very specific and well within the city’s competence. The city knows how to operate parks.
Picking and choosing educational programs to fund is well outside the city’s scope of responsibility and competence – unless you propose the city simply hand over money to fund whatever wish list the AUHSD sends over?
Anaheim is not in the hotel business, but provides hotel subsidies.
Anaheim is not in the car sale business, but provides car sales subsidies.
Anaheim also provides a direct subsidy to the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce . . . yet is not in the commercial industry.
Your magical line of competency seems to conveniently circle those issues you like and exclude those you do not.
You have trouble following a line of reasoning, regardless of what name you use. Economic development is the proper policy province of the city. Subsidizing public education is not. Anaheim has a city government, and it has several school districts. Are you following?
You could try talking to the point: do you agree with Al Jabbar and his AUHSD Board colleagues?
Really? So now it’s what’s proper and not what’s competent?
And how do we assess the competency of those in charge of economic development? How do you define proper?
How is it any different than the competency of public education, which is absolutely properly placed in the realm of public policy.
You’re not limiting government based on competency. You’re limiting it based on some other arbitrary line. I suspect the issue isn’t really about what Anaheim is paying for, but really who is being paid.
I don’t think you like the people getting the check on the other end of AUHSD. I think you do like the people getting the check at the Chamber, the hotels, Disney . . . et al.
As per your usual, if you don’t like the comment, then don’t publish it.
Ryan, now you’re just making it up as you go along. The average citizen can tell you the difference between a city and a school district and what they are responsible for doing. They can rely on common sense and experience, for example. Your claim that I am drawing arbitrary lines is nonsense, and your points aren’t made stronger just because you make them with your fangs bared.
Look, Matt– if you’re going to ban me, then ban me.
Outing anonymity is a good way to get into trouble. Not trying to harp on the ghosts of your past, but if you’re going to extend that shield to your commenters, extend it equally.
Does this mean Cynthia Ward SUPPORTS creating an open-ended city subsidy for AUHSD? Does that go for all the other districts with schools in Anaheim? Does Cynthia Ward think, or just react?
And I should add that Cynthia is still unable to distinguish apples from oranges.
Anaheimster, I have not begun to even examine the proposal by the School District, thus I did not address it in any way. I was addressing the rank hypocrisy of those who believe an open ended subsidy to SOME corporate interests but not others is somehow acceptable, but aid to the schools that support our property values is evil. Huh?
BTW-for all of the nattering over here about what Cynthia Ward thinks, believes, or espouses, i would remind you, again, that I am not an elected leader in Anaheim, so who cares what I support? You seem to be the only ones who CARE what Cynthia Ward thinks or does, and frankly you have not been great at judging the values of the everyday Anaheim citizen so far.
Seriously, you despise Mayor Tait, a man who kicked the ever lovin’ nuggets out of ALL his opponents combined. You fought tooth and nail against District Elections, something that won across the board in Anaheim, including the precincts that voted for Kashkari. Not exactly a left-wing conspiracy to hand over the city to liberals. You backed the inane Stadium giveaway, but when push came to shove, the Council FAILED to vote into final agreement the very MOUs they claim to stand by. They had the votes among them, something Murray told an assembled crowd (smaller than the CATER event Thursday) at the Catch last year. The public went bonkers in opposition to those deal points.
You have backed the hotel deals to developers, ignoring the 15,000 people who signed the Take Back Anaheim petition, (hint, that is a whole lot more of Anaheim than signed up for SOAR over the last 7 years of its existence, despite unlimited Disney bucks and a professional public affairs consultant to promote the group) Even the recent Disney insanity (which was shoved down the throats of citizens at 1 am while making the families for GOALS ACADEMY wait for the next meeting, thus forcing CHILDREN to play recess in a parking lot until the City Council got done grandstanding and using CHILDREN as political pawns) was backed ONLY by those with an economic incentive for backing it.
Show me an everyday citizen NOT on some associated payroll who has shown up for ANY of the subsidized insider deals promoted on this website. So given how rock bottom this blog is at gauging the mood of Anaheim, I am going to guess nobody outside of this blog gives a rat’s behind what I do or do not support. You need a hobby beyond watching me, I am not nearly as fascinating as you seem to find me. If you’ll excuse me, today will be spent doing laundry. Feel free to watch.
The average Anaheim resident has no idea about CATER Cynthia. Go to your own city farmers market sometime and ask them.
If you’re going to utter a non-sequitur, you should try to go for something funny, like clear bowling balls with fish inside them. Non-sequiturs like the one you uttered are just sort of sad.
You always air your dirty laundry in public. What’s new?!
Well, see, the school district is going about this all wrong. Here’s the process:
Step 1: hire well-known lobbyist.
Step 2: declare yourself an “economic engine.”
Step 3: keep repeating step 2.
Step 4: back up armored car to City Hall to pick up huge subsidy from City Council.
It’s surprising that Cynthia Ward thinks the city of Anaheim should subsidize four other cities in the AUHSD jurisdiction. Anaheim provides joint use park space, libraries, public safety and host of other services. Anaheim steps up to support its schools much more than most cities in the county. The AUHSD board slapped the city in the face with this resolution. The city should send them an invoice for services provided to date. Al Jabbar is playing a nasty game of politics – this is nothing more than a cheap political stunt. The other trustees and their staff should be ashamed for enabling an attack on one of their five cities – especially one that bends over backwards to support their district.
Now why was THAT comment anonymous? Fear of Al Jabbar?
Why do CATERS members require anonymity?
I’ll answer your question after you answer mine.
The City of Irvine began a program under its progressive council majority where the city provides more public money to schools in Irvine than any other city in OC. The current Republican council majority is maintaining this policy. The funds come with strings attached as to how they can be spent, but it allows IUSD, TUSD and a small amount to SAUSD to spend more money in the classroom. Cities should see public education as an investment.
Comparing Anaheim with Irvine is comparing night with day. First the Irvine measure principally funds arts programs not capital or curriculum. Also, Irvine property values are so high citywide that they principally fund their schools outright and don’t have the same mandates and costs that are applied to Anaheim and other districts. Anaheim also has seven districts citywide. How much and how many should the city be funding? What level of oversight would the city be provided? What services should the city forgo to supplement schools? This seems like a convoluted way to try to justify raising local taxes so the state doesn’t have to keep its obligations to our schools. Lastly no one is answering why the district limited its resolution to Anaheim v. All cities in its jurisdiction. Anaheim is older than Irvine, has a larger population, has gangs, graffiti, and a growing homeless population, aging infrastructure, greater levels of unemployment and genuine urban challenges that do not exist in Irvine. It’s a joke to compare the two – and all of this ignores the fact that Anaheim does supplement all schools with significant resources that many cities do not provide. A cheap stunt and nothing more.
The Irvine measure actually funds things like crossing guards and non-classified staff among other things. We also have an active fundraising g group, IPSF, and there are three districts in the city that benefit from this work. The model followed is each district gets a percentage of city funds based on Irvine students served. That model and a fundraising organization could be replicated in Anaheim. Of all of Irvine is affluent; half the residences are rentals and parents sacrifice to send kids to school in Irvine. But it’s not a joke to compare the two at all…it’s the limit of your sight