Rebuttal

In his letter in the Jan. 13 issue of the Independent, Nicholas Ekovich

repeats the false propaganda of the education establishment (Mailbag,

“Readers say ‘no”’).

He said, “Since the passage of Proposition 13, our schools and children

have not received the kind of funding they did years ago.” The truth is

that schools receive more, substantially more.

Since Proposition 13 was passed, the annual increase in real dollars,

that is dollars adjusted for the effects of inflation, has increased by

more than 1% per annum. The increase is true whether one looks at total

or per-student spending. The figure does not include the almost

$500-per-student increase in the current fiscal year. Given that more

than 20 years have passed since Prop. 13 became law, actual spending has

increased almost 25%.

Money, or lack thereof, is not the problem with public education in

California. A lack of curricular substance and fiscal discipline is.