The Case for Increased City Support for the Public Schools

By José J. Escarce

As the Santa Monica City Council nears the end of its deliberations regarding next year’s City budget, many residents of Santa Monica are urging the Council to increase substantially the City’s ongoing financial contribution to our public schools. The case for the Council to do so, and to provide the financial support the schools need to further their pursuit of excellence, is multifaceted and powerful.

The “Good Government” Case
In his 1958 book, The Affluent Society, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith criticized what he considered our nation’s distorted priorities, including our willingness to steer resources away from education. He argued that one of the central goals of the affluent society we have created should be “education or, more broadly, investment in human as distinct from material capital.” Education enables people to lead satisfying lives and to make significant contributions to a democratic society. Government can have no higher goal than to help prepare the next generation of citizens for productive and rewarding participation in our nation’s pluralistic democracy, and excellent public schools are the best means available to government for attaining this goal.

The “Social Justice” Case
In our advanced technological society, the quality of the education people receive affects their ability to understand and adapt to the rapidly changing world around them, earn a decent living, and take part in civic life and the political process. The children of educated, well-to-do parents will always have the opportunity to receive a quality education. However, low-income children, the children of parents with limited formal schooling, the children of immigrants, and other disadvantaged children must depend on the public schools. By putting a quality education within the reach of all children, excellent public schools represent the best way to prevent the intergenerational transmission of poverty and exclusion from meaningful participation in our society.

The “Community Benefits” Case
The fates of communities are inextricably linked to the fates of the public schools that serve them. Simply put, excellent public schools make for desirable, livable, and thriving communities; conversely, few if any desirable communities have poor schools. Excellent public schools contribute to the quality of life in their communities in numerous and varied ways. For example, excellent public schools help create vibrant and stable neighborhoods, promote civic participation and engagement, enhance public safety, and foster the networks of informal and reciprocal relationships and ties that underpin what sociologists call social capital. These features are what distinguish successful from unsuccessful communities.

In his recent collection of essays, Liberal Education and the Public Interest, James O. Freedman, the former president of Dartmouth College, writes: “Nothing is more essential to the quality of a city than its public schools…[Yet] Mayors, city councils, and ruling majorities have simply not been prepared to make the investments in schools that are necessary for the attainment of high quality.” After decrying the neglect of public institutions by elected officials, he continues, “These contemporary developments are ominous. They signal a growing physical isolation of the poor from the rest of society and a retreat from a healthy regime of civic virtue. They erode support for public institutions that serve all social classes in common.”

We can and must do better in Santa Monica. The Santa Monica City Council will soon allocate the City’s sizable revenues to fund a variety of needed services and programs. In doing so, it must weigh the costs and benefits to the community of the different services and programs. In a representative democracy, it is expected to consider the views of the citizens as well.

The City’s current financial contribution to the public schools falls short on both counts. An allocation of less than 2 percent of the City’s operating budget is far from commensurate with the considerable beneficial impact of our schools on the quality of life in the city and on the welfare of the city’s residents; the appropriate percentage is undoubtedly much higher. Additionally, the citizens of Santa Monica recently reaffirmed their unwavering support for excellent public schools by approving Measure S. It has been evident for some time that most of these citizens also expect the City to do its part by contributing much more money to the schools.

It is crystal clear: The time has come for the Santa Monica City Council to correct the long-standing misallocation in Santa Monica’s budget by substantially increasing the City’s ongoing financial support for our public schools.

(Eds. note: Jose J. Escarce is vice president of the School Board)