I just got off the phone with Jim Aschwanden, fellow supporter of career and technical education and my favorite member of California's State Board of Education.  I call Jim from time to time for news about what's happening to education in California at the state level.  I should only call Jim when my blood pressure needs amping up. Oh, Lord, might not now be a good time to send some real leaders?

First, and yet again, CA  is ready to hand out IOU's instead of paychecks. Legislators--how come legislators get real paychecks and not vowels?-- must not have had very good educations.  They do not seem to be able to read simple calendars.  Unlike Leap year, June 30, the date by which a budget must be passed to keep the state solvent, comes around every year.  Since California is broke, perhaps we should only let the Legislature meet, and get paid, every leap year.  But, I digress...back to my enlightening conversation with Jim.

This year, the budget impasse took down several bills that would have improved career and technical education in California's secondary schools. Jim had thought these bills had a good chance of making their way out of committee and onto a floor vote.  Not this year. Please don't hold your breath for next year.  Any changes to secondary education that could help California's young adults get good jobs will be strictly DIY.

Jim is a very optimistic guy.  Me, not so much.  I've watched these bills float up in committee year after year since the mid 70s.  If they are so lucky as to be passed, there's usually no funding.  Unfunded mandates, especially in education, come out of the CA Legislature all the time.  We pay these people to make up laws and programs that won't be enacted because the State has no money. 

Jim also gave me some updated statistics on what taxpayers contribute to yearly to fund public school students K-16+.  Here's a summary plus a few other stats thrown in for comparison:

• High school:  $7,800
• Community college (106 campuses):  $5,000
• Cal State University (23 campuses):  $14,000
• University of California (10 campuses): $21,000
• Cost of housing a prison inmate:  $49,000 (CA Department of Corrections)
• 48,000, the number who transferred from California community colleges to university last year
• 155,000, the number of recent UC or CSU (BA/BS/MA or PhD) degree holders who enrolled in community colleges last year.

First, let's look at those last two statistics.  Undoubtedly, some of these folks with higher degrees were back for a class or other short term training to update their skills.  But, that doesn't account for over three times as many university degree holders coming into the community college system as transfer from it.  According to the students themselves, higher degree holders go back to community college to get employable skills. 

Just to play with numbers, let's assume half of those 155,000 uni grads, or 77,500, came from the CSU system.  California tax payers have already contributed to the higher education costs of these grads to the tune of $1,085,000,000 (yup, that's billion).  Those who graduated from the University of California system have already cost taxpayers $1,627,500,000.  The combined total is a staggering $2,712,500.  No drop out figures were provided for this group, but just to see how much taxpayers might be on the hook for, let's take the total of 155,000 x $6000, what CA taxpayers contribute for each community college grad. That number is $930,000,000.  Add up all three numbers and you get $2,805,500,000 spent on just 155,000 students.

This means every year, Californian's pay an average of $18,000 in higher education costs for each of those 155,000 recycled uni grads.  What are we getting for that money?  Not enough to polish the tarnish of the Golden State's current unemployment of 12.3%, the second highest in the country.

Want to know if the bozos are driving the bus in your state?  Call up one of your state's Board of Education members and ask for similar data.  If you can't get the data, please write a letter to the editor of your local paper.  If you do get some data, please post it here so readers can learn what's happening around the country.