Dipping further into a reported $75 billion surplus, California Governor Gavin Newsom continued his blitz of the Golden State on Wednesday by calling for universal transitional kindergarten, more after-school opportunities and a flood of new teachers and counselors.
(CN) --- California will offer free transitional kindergarten and college savings accounts to millions of low-income children under a $20 billion education proposal unveiled Wednesday by Governor Gavin Newsom.
In the latest installment of Newsom’s blueprint for the state’s estimated $75 billion budget surplus, the Democratic governor promised a record level of education funding for the upcoming year and urged the state’s 10,000 K-12 schools to fully reopen in the fall. Over the next few weeks Newsom will press the Legislature for a horde of new spending programs he claims will “transform” public education after a nightmare stretch of pandemic-induced school closures.
“The reality is we are talking in historic terms and transformational terms. I hope people are paying attention,” Newsom said while previewing another piece of his revised budget. “We are looking to transform, not go back to where we were.”
From a Monterey County elementary school, Newsom and state officials rattled off a laundry list of ambitious proposals intended to not only get kids back in the classroom but fight income inequality.
Anchoring the education package are plans to offer universal transitional kindergarten at a cost of $2.7 billion by the 2024-2025 school year, $500 college savings plans for an estimated 3.7 million disadvantaged students and a reduction in classroom sizes.
Newsom, who has been heavily criticized for the slow pace of school reopenings and is facing a recall, says the state’s rosy finances have it in a position to implement progressive ideals and hire and train a flood of new teachers. By the time he finished rattling off the various proposals and reforms, the Democratic governor was almost out of breath.
“More counselors, more teachers, more support staff at schools all across the state,” Newsom continued. “I don’t want to sound like a salesman, I’m just an enthusiastic father and member of this community.”
Newsom believes California is in the position to spend wildly on education and other sectors thanks to a complete turnaround of the state’s finances.
Unemployment may have spiked to record highs but even the pandemic couldn’t slow down the state’s richest taxpayers. A booming stock market padded the portfolios of California’s countless millionaires and billionaires and tax revenues didn’t skip a beat, to Newsom and his advisers’ pleasant surprise.
As a result, just one year later Newsom claims the state went from a record budget deficit to a surplus larger than the budgets of almost every other state. Overall, he says the state experienced a stunning $125 billion reversal to go along with $26 billion in federal Covid-19 aid.
Throughout the week Newsom has been revealing his plans for the surging tax revenues during press conferences up and down the Golden State.
Along with Wednesday’s education announcement, Newsom has this week promoted $600 tax rebates for California’s middle class, $12 billion to “end family homelessness,” $5 billion for water infrastructure, and $1.5 billion to clean up streets and install public art beautification projects.
“A surplus the likes of which no other state in American history has ever experienced,” Newsom declared Wednesday.
The entirety of Newsom’s bold spending plans will be formally introduced Friday and will require at least majority support from the Legislature during the next month of budget negotiations. But with Democratic supermajorities in both the Assembly and state Senate, Newsom’s plans figure to be well received.
“Today’s announcement by Governor Newsom is fantastic news,” said Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles. “By investing in our youngest children, we are investing in working families, in an equitable recovery and in California’s future.”
As with his other announcements this week, Newsom’s education proposal didn’t excite the state’s minority party.
“Now with a recall looming, the worst governor in California history is desperate to keep his job and willing to say anything. Californians know better that Newsom makes decisions in his best interest, not those of students, parents or the Golden State,” California Republican Party chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson responded in a statement.
The sweeping education plan also proposes $3.3 billion over the next five years on teacher training, $1.1 billion to hire staff in disadvantaged schools and $2 billion to aid schools with implementing Covid-19 safety protocols. The funding would be in addition to the $6.6 billion reopening package approved by lawmakers and Newsom last March.
Education leaders at Wednesday’s press conference agreed the billions could plug teacher shortages while improving opportunities for disadvantaged schools.
“This set of investments and reforms will catapult California forward and really allow us to reinvent the public education system in this state,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the State Board of Education.
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