Where Will the Money Come From

I will begin this post from an item of information on a blog created by The Daily Breeze and written by one of its education editors, Ms. Melisa Pamer:

LAUSD to take $833 million hit
By Melissa Pamer
on December 18, 2008 5:34 PM

Los Angeles Unified expects to lose $833 million in state matching funds for construction and modernization projects, following a Wednesday decision by a state panel to halt infrastructure financing, a district spokeswoman said today.

Thirty-five new schools in various stages of construction, as well as hundreds of upgrades for existing campuses, would take a hit, said LAUSD's Shannon Haber.

"The list is enormous," Haber said.

The district is still figuring out the effects of the plans. More detail on the effected projects should be forthcoming from the district, she added.

The Pooled Money Investment Board in Sacramento voted Wednesday to halt nearly $4 billion in funding for infrastructure projects across the state, affecting many school districts.
------------------------------------------------------------------

The next pieces of information can be found at Ms. Diana Chapman's blog; The Underdog for Kids at: http://www.theunderdogforkids.blogspot.com/

Ms. Chapman receives and posts creations by local area students who come from immigrant families.

Whether the students included in the posts were born in this country or immigrated with their parents from somewhere else, I have been having a dilly of a time trying to consider responding to the post Ms. Chapman places on her blog.

Our U.S. Constitution and laws coming from that document guarantee and education for school-age children in this country no matter whether the posses the documents to legally live in this country or not. It is one of the strongest and most defended parts of our laws and I do not believe those laws should be changed.

Every school-age student has the right to a free public school education in this country, no matter whether they are here legally or illegally. Nobody is going to change that.

But who has to pay to educate every child and where will the money come from to provide all students with an education?

The Los Angeles Unified School District no longer receives a portion of property taxes paid for education to support the District. Simply put, there is more going out than is coming in and, in these times, there is no certainty that this problem will ever change for the better.

Enrollment throughout the District continues to decline but that decline also means fewer dollars coming into the system.

L.A.U.S.D. strongly suggests that enrollment will begin to go up again as early as 2013, but with the current economic conditions, that date may be premature by several years.

If the enrollment does begin to increase again for an extended period of time, what socio-economic conditions might come with that increase in population and student enrollment?

It is certainly understandable that students are writing about the experiences their parents faced in getting their children to a place where others must pay for the education of the students.

In most of the posts provided by Ms. Chapman, we are given to believe that the parents of many of the writers do not have the income necessary to pay property taxes anywhere sufficient to cover even a partial cost of their children's' education.

I want each and every school-age student to be given the best opportunities for the best education.........the best education POSSIBLE.

Unfortunately, I and so many others can no longer afford to provide all students with an education I wish they could have.

I pay the property taxes and my education portion goes to L.A.U.S.D. I would like to have my dollars go to the District 80% of the school-age students living in my area attend school in, but we don't have that right at this time.

I think it is time that we the taxpayers, demand that L.A.U.S.D. be broken apart in such a way that allows the taxpayers in specific areas to support more local schools to those specific areas.

Too much of our money is going away from our areas and our children are suffering for something they and their parents did not create.

It can not be a matter of ethnicity because 73.7% of the L.A.U.S.D. student population is made up of one particular ethnic group and that means the District is pretty much back to being segregated, unfortunately.

I don't believe in a backlash. I do believe that it is time to focus on ways of helping all students as best as we can.

In this time of the Districts it is not about the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. It is all about every student being part of the 'have nots' and that must be unacceptable for all of us.