By Bill Cirone, Santa Barbara County Superintendent of Schools
Newspaper Column
With the release of the governor's budget this year, the issue of our state's financial crisis became front and center. As deliberations begin among policymakers, I salute the Santa Barbara County Board of Education for inserting itself into the process by producing a statement of conscience and insisting that our legislators consider its points.
It has always been the case that budgets are a statement of values, maybe more so in difficult times when choices are so stark. The county board’s statement helps remind us what is of vital importance as our state proceeds to make those wrenching decisions. Perhaps the board’s most critical point: “We believe it is a moral imperative that those individuals who reaped the rewards from the state’s earlier investment in an exceptional education system do all they can to ensure that comparable opportunities are available to young people today. The investment gap is unconscionable.”
The county board states that the concept of free and universal public education is the core of what makes our country exceptional, and continues to be the envy of the world. For generations, adults did what was right for the generations that followed. Today, the board said it sees a clear abrogation of that duty.
“In classrooms throughout our state and nation, children learn the skills essential to their contributions to the democratic society they will enter as adults. Young people today will fly the planes, repair the cars, staff the emergency rooms, and make the policies that affect the generation that follows. Their preparation and education are what will make the difference between our success or failure as a society. This is simple fact,” the statement says.
The board members are pragmatists: “We are well aware that our state faces a true fiscal crisis that was years in the making and is staggering in its magnitude. There are no easy solutions. Programs will need to be cut. Revenues will need to be added. We are mindful that representatives at every level need to make extremely difficult and wrenching choices. Every program receiving state funds has fervent supporters who can argue persuasively that those programs are vital. We respectfully submit that not all institutions are equal. Public education is of a different magnitude and impact.”
The board submitted that it is unacceptable and self-defeating for the state to abdicate its responsibility to fund public schools at an adequate level.
“Studies are unambiguous on the high correlation between a lack of education and much more costly consequences, including crime, poverty, the need for social services, incarcerations, law enforcement, and other expensive interventions. That is the practical need. There is also the moral need for societies to take care of their children,” they wrote.
“While we do not presume to tell legislators how they will work the state’s budget to secure the funding necessary to ensure our children receive the education they need and deserve, we are stating emphatically that there is urgent need to do so.
“The current situation is unsustainable. Pared down levels of educational services are not an option. The very fabric of our society is at stake. We cannot lose a generation of young people simply because the adults refused to act.”
In calling upon today’s adults to do what adults of the past have always done for the next generation of children, the Santa Barbara County Board of Education is making a powerful statement of values. The trustees reflect a wide range of political and philosophical differences on a broad range of issues; this unanimous statement therefore stands in testimony to the deep-seated, nonpartisan belief that there is danger in our current condition regarding support of public education, and a moral imperative to take action.
