Save the children
Title: “Education”
Sponsor: Vote Yes on C & D
Type: Television ad
The message: Three years of recession have caused deep cuts to education that have hit kids hard. Substandard buildings, crowded classrooms and cuts to programs including preschool, kindergarten and Read to Achieve are the result. “… Our kids and teachers can’t take any more big hits. Vote Yes on C&D.”
Fact: Read to Achieve, which provides grants to help 2nd- and 3rd-graders who read below their grade level, was cut $11.9 million between fiscal year 2004-05 and 2005-06.
Between 2003-04 and 2004-05, 2,000 kids were cut from the state’s preschool program. But for 2005-06, money was restored to fund the 2,000 kids and add 1,310 more. In 2001-02, the state cut funding for unsatisfactory schools to send their half-day kindergartners to full-day programs. That funding was restored for 2005-06.
The state owes $190 million from a lawsuit requiring it to pay for the maintenance and replacement of unsafe school buildings. The state has not been able to make all of those payments. Referendum D would allow the state to pay off the $147 million it owes.
Overall, K-12 funding increased between 2001 and 2004 because of Amendment 23, which requires the state to increase funding by student growth and inflation plus 1 percent every year.
Between 2001-02 and 2003-04, the total general fund money to the Education Department increased $149 million, from $2.3 billion to $2.4 billion.
– Staff writer Chris Frates
