Sorry, but the idea there’s been no warning just doesn’t hold water. Look at the number of parcel taxes, and the SOS campaign(s), year after year after year — and now its so bad that there will have to be two in one calendar year.

This is like the old joke about the guy who drowned in a flood, after repeated opportunities as the water rose to leave his home and save himself, which he had ignored saying “I believe and so will be saved”. When he got to heaven the man asked the Lord why he wasn’t saved, to which God replied,”but I put out a radio broadcast to warn you, then sent a sheriff’s car, a rowboat, a Coast Guard cutter and a helicopter to try to get you from your house — what more were you waiting for?”

No, its been bad, been getting worse, and if the depth of the deluge couldn’t be predicted fully, there was no mistaking school funding was barely keeping its nose above an ever deeper flood. I’m not blaming the board for the global, national or state situation, or the state-level politics which negatively affect education funding at all levels, and I credit their dedication and hard work. But the fact is the band-aids haven’t stopped the bleeding, and it’s time to accept some serious surgery is in order.

When I say long-term planning, I specifically meant a FISCAL plan that looks at what it will take to maintain a service level, in this case suggesting the actual teacher/student ratio in the classroom be the primary (but not solitary) benchmark, and then sets out a comprehensive financing package which can sustain that service level.

One could surely use any of a variety valid benchmarks instead of classroom size, although it seems now well-established that is the single best predictor of quality instruction in schools in this country. What can’t work, as the plain facts demonstrate, is depending on the present funding paradigm.

Longterm planning is good, but no one anticipated this level of fiscal downturn. It’s hard to plan as you suggest until you know what level of cuts for how long. In other words, what does a worst case scenario look like? Hindsight is always 20/20.

It is true the school board didn’t create this funding meltdown. But it’s equally true that comprehensive planning has been advocated several times over during the years this problem has festered, but that suggestion has always been ignored. Ideas that have worked elsewhere — such as the creation of a district-level endowment, a la Palo Alto — could have been adapted to Davis’ circumstances. Donated monies diverted to stadiums or tennis courts could have been put to better, more education-specific issues, projects such as the destruction of the old multi-purpose room held off, and district property leased or sold. In concert with a parcel tax indexed to maintain a specific level of class ratio, there could have been a fighting chance to halt the long decline in the once top-quality education for which DJUSD formerly deserved top marks.

Voters just passed a new parcel tax supporting DJUSD, and the outcome was an increase in class size to barely below State standards. Will they again support another parcel tax, following which the same or worse may happen? Yet the sad truth is, if they don’t the schools — that is to say, really, the kids — will suffer worse.

I’m sure this situation is a nightmare for Susan and Gina and the other really well-meaning members of the school board. But hard work and good intentions have not dug the schools out of this mess. Richard Harris has pointed toward what’s needed, but it will take a tough, gutty realism to effect a real long-term solution.

“Back to basics” — in other words, do you advocate a one size fits all model?