California needs better high schools, universal preschool, and better student-nutrition and -fitness programs—and the money to pay for them—Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said last week in his annual State of Education Address.
He endorsed a proposed ballot initiative that would reduce the votes required to raise local parcel taxes for schools from a two-thirds majority to 55 percent.
Mr. O’Connell took a harsher tone than he usually adopts when calling on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, to meet constitutionally mandated funding guarantees for schools.
“We simply aren’t funding our schools at the level they need to produce world-class results,” the former Democratic state senator said in the Jan. 24 address delivered in Sacramento.
