*California Progress Report*
Posted on 14 November 2011
http://www.californ
*By Amy Vanderwarker*
of California Students Association
Last Wednesday night, more than one thousand students and campus workers at
University of California Berkeley held a day of action protesting budget
cuts and fee increases to build momentum toward a state-wide demonstration
at the UC Regents meeting on November 17th. Like other Occupy movements
around the country, the crowd was cleared with police violence and mass
arrests. The irony was not lost on one professor, who noted that the sharp
rise in student debt has occurred during a period where prison funding has
consistently been prioritized over funding for higher education.
Indeed, California is now a leader on two counts that don’t make any
resident proud: we have the largest prison population in the country, and
our public universities have hiked tuition the most of any state in the
country, 21% in the past year alone.[1] We now spend nearly equivalent
amounts of money on locking people in cages as we do providing
opportunities for higher education – 10.5 % of total state spending versus
12.7 %.[2]
There is a disturbing, inverse relationship to public education and the
number of people locked up in cages: our prison population and budget has
skyrocketed, while the amount of spending on public education has
plummeted. Spending on prisons has grown 1500% since 1980, while higher
education spending has dropped. Since 1980, our state built 1 university
and 20 prisons. K-12 faced a 10.5% cut in 2009-2010, and per pupil spending
has steadily decreased since 1980.[3]
Despite these deep cuts to public education, on top of similar cuts to
Health and Human Services and our social safety net, the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Governor Brown and County
Boards of Supervisors are pushing forward the largest prison building
project in the history of the world. In 2007, as the economic crisis was
starting to unfold in the boardrooms and trading floors of the 1%, and
predatory lending schemes were about to hit millions of Californians, the
state authorized AB 900, which called for $12.4 billion to build 53,000
more prison and jail cells, which will cost taxpayers roughly $1.5 billion
per year to operate. Our state prisons currently hold around 156,000
people,[4] and conditions are so atrocious that in May the US Supreme Court
ordered the population to be reduced.
Just over two weeks ago, as schools and universities across the state brace
for the possibility of devastating trigger cuts, CDCR asked for counties to
submit proposals to disperse $603 million in funds to build new jail
cells. The funding is part of Phase II of AB 900 and directly linked to
“realignment,” where the state is transferring the responsibility for
low-level prisoners to counties But instead of giving counties incentives
to provide alternatives to imprisonment or re-entry services, such as
educational opportunities that could strengthen entire communities in
crisis, the state is making it easier for counties to access AB 900 money
and only providing counties financial incentives to build more cells.
Where is our state getting money to build cages? Slashing the social safety
net and the budget for public education and tuition hikes. Budget cuts
figuratively, and literally, make students pay. Tuition at UC schools has
increased 200% since 2008.[5] UC President Yudoff has proposed increasing
tuition as much as 81%, in the face of a potential $2.5 billion dollar cut
to education this winter.[6] California Community Colleges faced a tuition
increase of 37% in 2011.
Let’s not forget the dollars that are often left out of the estimated costs
of public education: student debt. About 56% of students who earned
bachelor's degrees at public colleges in 2009-10 graduated with debt, with
an average burden of $22,000. In 2011, this number grew 5 percent, to over
$25,000.[7]
We spend a whooping $46,000 a year on keeping people confined, away from
loved ones and in atrocious conditions, while we spend a mere $8,908 a year
per youth in our elementary, middle and high schools. California leads the
nation in prison spending, but we rank 46th in terms of K-12 per pupil
spending. What would it look like if those numbers were reversed?
On November 9th and 16th, despite police repression, thousands of students
in California are drawing attention to the slashing of public education
funds through the ReFund Public Education Week of Action. Mobilizations are
happening on 16 campuses across the State including in Fresno, Los Angeles,
Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Riverside which are also some of
the counties seeking AB 900 funding to expand their jails.
As part of the Occupy movement, in mobilizations and school walk-outs
across the state, people are saying no to public education austerity
measures, and identifying solutions for generating progressive revenue
streams in a time of economic recession: tax the rich and corporations, and
use public money to bail out residents, not banks and Wall Street firms.
The Occupy movement has mobilized tens of thousands of people to protest
the consolidation of wealth among a small group of people, the obscene
profits that corporations are making while everyday residents watch their
social services cut on a daily basis, and the use of public funds to prop
up these corrupt institutions.
Our list of demands needs to include cutting prison spending first, not
last, and making those cuts by sending people home with strong re-entry
services, not making conditions inside even worse. California needs a
prison and jail construction moratorium now, or we will never have free
higher education. Just as the 99 percent says that it is time for banks and
corporations to pay, it is time for California to get our priorities
straight: fund public education and social services, not prisons.
For more information, check: Berkeleycuts.
utotherescue.
www.makebankspaycalifornia.org, www.curbprisonspending.org
Posted on 14 November 2011
http://www.californ
*By Amy Vanderwarker*
of California Students Association
Last Wednesday night, more than one thousand students and campus workers at
University of California Berkeley held a day of action protesting budget
cuts and fee increases to build momentum toward a state-wide demonstration
at the UC Regents meeting on November 17th. Like other Occupy movements
around the country, the crowd was cleared with police violence and mass
arrests. The irony was not lost on one professor, who noted that the sharp
rise in student debt has occurred during a period where prison funding has
consistently been prioritized over funding for higher education.
Indeed, California is now a leader on two counts that don’t make any
resident proud: we have the largest prison population in the country, and
our public universities have hiked tuition the most of any state in the
country, 21% in the past year alone.[1] We now spend nearly equivalent
amounts of money on locking people in cages as we do providing
opportunities for higher education – 10.5 % of total state spending versus
12.7 %.[2]
There is a disturbing, inverse relationship to public education and the
number of people locked up in cages: our prison population and budget has
skyrocketed, while the amount of spending on public education has
plummeted. Spending on prisons has grown 1500% since 1980, while higher
education spending has dropped. Since 1980, our state built 1 university
and 20 prisons. K-12 faced a 10.5% cut in 2009-2010, and per pupil spending
has steadily decreased since 1980.[3]
Despite these deep cuts to public education, on top of similar cuts to
Health and Human Services and our social safety net, the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Governor Brown and County
Boards of Supervisors are pushing forward the largest prison building
project in the history of the world. In 2007, as the economic crisis was
starting to unfold in the boardrooms and trading floors of the 1%, and
predatory lending schemes were about to hit millions of Californians, the
state authorized AB 900, which called for $12.4 billion to build 53,000
more prison and jail cells, which will cost taxpayers roughly $1.5 billion
per year to operate. Our state prisons currently hold around 156,000
people,[4] and conditions are so atrocious that in May the US Supreme Court
ordered the population to be reduced.
Just over two weeks ago, as schools and universities across the state brace
for the possibility of devastating trigger cuts, CDCR asked for counties to
submit proposals to disperse $603 million in funds to build new jail
cells. The funding is part of Phase II of AB 900 and directly linked to
“realignment,” where the state is transferring the responsibility for
low-level prisoners to counties But instead of giving counties incentives
to provide alternatives to imprisonment or re-entry services, such as
educational opportunities that could strengthen entire communities in
crisis, the state is making it easier for counties to access AB 900 money
and only providing counties financial incentives to build more cells.
Where is our state getting money to build cages? Slashing the social safety
net and the budget for public education and tuition hikes. Budget cuts
figuratively, and literally, make students pay. Tuition at UC schools has
increased 200% since 2008.[5] UC President Yudoff has proposed increasing
tuition as much as 81%, in the face of a potential $2.5 billion dollar cut
to education this winter.[6] California Community Colleges faced a tuition
increase of 37% in 2011.
Let’s not forget the dollars that are often left out of the estimated costs
of public education: student debt. About 56% of students who earned
bachelor's degrees at public colleges in 2009-10 graduated with debt, with
an average burden of $22,000. In 2011, this number grew 5 percent, to over
$25,000.[7]
We spend a whooping $46,000 a year on keeping people confined, away from
loved ones and in atrocious conditions, while we spend a mere $8,908 a year
per youth in our elementary, middle and high schools. California leads the
nation in prison spending, but we rank 46th in terms of K-12 per pupil
spending. What would it look like if those numbers were reversed?
On November 9th and 16th, despite police repression, thousands of students
in California are drawing attention to the slashing of public education
funds through the ReFund Public Education Week of Action. Mobilizations are
happening on 16 campuses across the State including in Fresno, Los Angeles,
Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Riverside which are also some of
the counties seeking AB 900 funding to expand their jails.
As part of the Occupy movement, in mobilizations and school walk-outs
across the state, people are saying no to public education austerity
measures, and identifying solutions for generating progressive revenue
streams in a time of economic recession: tax the rich and corporations, and
use public money to bail out residents, not banks and Wall Street firms.
The Occupy movement has mobilized tens of thousands of people to protest
the consolidation of wealth among a small group of people, the obscene
profits that corporations are making while everyday residents watch their
social services cut on a daily basis, and the use of public funds to prop
up these corrupt institutions.
Our list of demands needs to include cutting prison spending first, not
last, and making those cuts by sending people home with strong re-entry
services, not making conditions inside even worse. California needs a
prison and jail construction moratorium now, or we will never have free
higher education. Just as the 99 percent says that it is time for banks and
corporations to pay, it is time for California to get our priorities
straight: fund public education and social services, not prisons.
For more information, check: Berkeleycuts.
utotherescue.
www.makebankspaycalifornia.org, www.curbprisonspending.org
No comments:
Post a Comment