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Saving Public Education: Lesson Plans

Issues: 
Budget Crisis

In order to promote critical thinking and raise awareness about the current budget situation affecting public education, we encourage you to take 10 minutes each week to educate students about what is currently going on at UC and beyond. UC-AFT Local 2199 members will be working to provide many lesson plans to come to get your students thinking about what is at stake for them and their families.

 Lesson Plan #1: The Yudof Interview

 On September 24, a short interview with Mark Yudof, UC President, was published in the New York Times Magazine. Your students may find his answers reveal a lot about the most powerful man in the UC system whose decisions are having a huge impact on their lives. The article is one page but packs a punch. Send the link (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27fob-q4-t.html) or make copies and consider having a discussion that includes some of these questions, or others you come up with.

 1. How do President Yudof's answers make you feel about his leadership of the University in a time of crisis?

 2. What is your overall impression of President Yudof after reading the interview? Is he in touch with the people that are under him, including students, faculty, and staff of the largest University system in the country?

 3. Choose a quote and analyze the impression it gives to the national readership of UC and our President, or its significance to you and to the health of the University.

Examples:

Q: "Already professors on all 10 U.C. campuses are taking required 'furloughs,' to use a buzzword."

Yudof: "Let me tell you why we used it. The faculty said 'furlough' sounds more temporary that 'salary cut,' and being president of the University of California is like being a manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening. I listen to them."

 

Lesson Plan #2: Brief history of California public education to better explain tuition hikes.

 Beginning in the 1960’s the California Master Plan for Higher Education established higher education as a public good which should be offered by the state to its citizens free of tuition.

In 1978, Prop 13 was ratified.  Public education had previously been funded by local property taxes but prop 13 cut the state’s income from taxes by 57%. This meant cuts not only to public education but also to other social services such as health care, transportation, etc. Prop 13 also requires a 2/3-majority vote to make any changes to the tax law. No other state sets such a high bar. This makes it extremely difficult to change the constitution and to fix the problem of under-funding of social services like public education.

Further, in 2004 Schwarzenegger and the UC Regents signed in the Compact on Higher Education, which renamed education in California as a private rather than a public good. This has cut state support and shifted costs to the direct users/consumers: students and their families. It is important for students to know that these tuition hikes are not only a result of economic downturn, but that they are political as well.

We are currently seeing a $1.5 Billion shortfall, which has resulted in slashing programs and jobs and near fatal budget cuts.  It is important for students to start demanding their right to education as the public school system is slowly becoming more privatized.

Discussion Question: The University’s own mission statement in the 1960s held forth that, as a public university, the education should be free.   $10,000/year in fees is a far cry from free. Public education is at risk of being severely privatized. Some say it is gradually going to be run as though it is a corporation with more and more of the money being redirected to the top (as with CEOs, etc.).   Is this the model of education you signed up for?    What might be the long-term effects on California if fewer students can afford to attend University?   Discuss what kinds of actions might be necessary by members of the University community to restore public education priorities.


Save Public Education Lesson Plan #3: Administrator Salaries

UC President Mark Yudof was appointed to the UC Board of Regents in March 2008. His first-year compensation at The University of California was $828,000, of which $591,084 was his salary, and $228,000 was a first-year contribution to his pension. He recently stated in a New York Times article that he has cut his salary to $540,000.

1.  The President of UC makes more than the President of the United States ($400,00).  The Regents voted to increase salaries for the top administrators on the same day that they adopted the emergency salary cuts for workers and fee increases for students.  Discuss what you think UC's financial priorities should be and fair way to achieve them.

2.  Compare your monthly housing cost with the President's ($10,000/month).  What effects do fee increases have upon other areas of your life, such as housing, food, books, the need for additional employment or student loans, etc.?

 

Lesson Plan #4

California Ranks 44th in the adequacy of its spending per pupil on public education.

CA Per pupil spending = $7,244

National average = $9,963

92% of schools are in districts that spend less than the U.S. average (Source:  2001-02 figures adjusted using the NCES Geographic Cost of Education Index, Education Week, 2004.)

The Governor and legislative leaders reduced UC’s state funding from $3.2 billion to $2.6 billion.

This is about the level of 1999-2000, when UC had 165,000 students instead of today’s 220,000 students.

In the absence of state re-investment, individual in-state tuition would need to reach $27,000 a year at the UC to restore the quality of ed. it offered in 2001.

  1. Do you feel that education should be a public good, provided by the state to its citizens free of charge? Why or why not? What are the benefits of having a quality system of public education that all Californians can access regardless of economic status? What are some arguments against it?
  2. Visualize what UCSC might look like if tuition were to go up to $27,000. What kinds of students would be able to attend UCSC? Would you be able to attend this university? Would you want to? Is this the kind of education you signed up for?
  3. Do you feel that you deserve a quality education for free? Does everyone deserve one?

 Please offer these questions to students and encourage them to discuss in small groups.

Please contact Allison Guevara at aguevara@ucaft.org if you are interested in developing future lesson plans for this series.