Want to build a future? Then build better schools for your kids through Measure H
I would never be so presumptuous to tell you how to vote on an issue. That’s your call. But personally, my call was to vote yes on Measure H.
What’s Measure H? That’s a good question. It may be the most obscure item on your ballot even though it’s about investing in our school children and in an entity that needs more of our support: public education.
If passed by 55 percent of the vote, Measure H would allow the Sacramento City Unified School District to use general obligation bonds up to $750 million. The money would be used for construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation and replacement of school facilities within a district with many schools built at least 50 years ago.
There is no real opposition to Measure H. If passed, it would help SCUSD to qualify for $80 million in matching state funds.
So why wouldn’t this pass?
Because the narrative at SCUSD is bogged down by financial distress and bad press over years of labor strife. So let’s be clear: None of the Measure H money can be used for pensions or salaries. The district would be subject to mandatory audits to make sure the money was spent as advertised.
Proceeds for the bonds can only be used for its stated purpose.
The district’s general fund is strapped and has very little wiggle room for much in the way of improving crumbling facilities.
Sacramento’s business community should get off its duff and support our public schools by helping finance facilities’ upgrades so that this measure would not be necessary or, at the least, would be more modest.
But that’s not the case yet. It may be one day, but not yet.
Beyond labor negotiations
So Measure H it is, and my only regret is not writing about this issue sooner. But many of us are bystanders to the plight of our public school district in Sacramento.
Most local politicians talk a good game about equity and public education, though they approach the issue through a political lens. They put “labor peace” and the concerns of adults – specifically, adults who go to their political fundraisers – above what the kids need. And the politicians worry more about what their funders think than what the kids need.
Meanwhile, too many parents and community members are disconnected or just plain ignorant. Too many of us fly at 30,000 feet on the issue of public schools in Sacramento.
A community leader who is a lot smarter than I described this phenomenon to me in a way I had never considered before. He said that Sacramento’s public district doesn’t really have a constituency. The teachers do. They have a powerful union negotiating great deals for them and they have parents who love them.
I’m an SCUSD parent and I love my teachers too.
But to get our cash-strapped district where it needs to be, we need a constituency of parents, business leaders and politicians to begin viewing SCUSD through a different lens. Our school district needs friends who are more concerned about increasing the pool of college ready students than “labor peace.”
Instead of defining the district by politics, we need to define the district by graduation rates, by improving racial inequities, and better monitoring of student progress.
We need to be ashamed if our kids are learning in terrible facilities.
Sacramento needs to have SCUSD defined by learning and not as a political football.
Who are our school kids? They are our future work force. They are our future leaders. They are our future consumers, taxpayers.
Why wouldn’t we support them by investing in the buildings where they learn?
If we invest in their educations, our kids are more likely to get in the pipeline to college than prison.
Negotiations on tap
Here is a newsflash you might not have considered: Positive things are happening at SCUSD.
Tuesday – Election Day – the district and teachers begin real bargaining for a new contract. That’s a hugely positive step.
We finally have a school board that realizes the depths of the financial crisis facing the district. Board President Jessie Ryan is one of the brightest young elected officials in Sacramento and her fellow board members, Lisa Murawski, Leticia Garcia, Christina Pritchett, Mai Vang, Michael Minnick and Darrell Woo, are all declining to kick the financial can down the road as past boards have.
This board voted 7-0 to extend the contract of Superintendent Jorge Aguilar, a champion of equity for all students. Instability at the district has contributed to dysfunction and financial hardship,
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Kevin McCarty asked for, and got, a state audit of SCUSD that found that many, if not most, of its financial problems are years in the making, long before Aguilar got here in 2017.
To his lasting credit, McCarty has said directly that SCUSD faces a $27-million deficit that can only be fixed at the bargaining table between SCUSD and the teachers. McCarty dispelled notions that the financial crisis isn’t real and he said that any savings in negotiated concessions should go toward closing SCUSD’s operating budget.
And as chair of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance, McCarty has the ability to craft future legislation to help districts such as SCUSD.
What does all that add up to? The seeds for a new day at SCUSD and enough reason for taxpayers to support Measure H so our kids can be educated in schools they deserve.needs to have SCUSD defined by learning and not as a political
This story was originally published March 2, 2020 at 5:08 PM.
