SACRAMENTO, CALIF.
'Schools, not jails!'
Hundreds of students, teachers and parents
from all over northern California rallied at the steps of the
State Capitol in Sacramento May 8 to protest a wave of
draconian cuts proposed for the state education budget. The
demonstration was called by the Education Not Incarceration
coalition.
The self-proclaimed education governor, Gray Davis, has
called for cuts of $5 billion to kindergarten through
12th-grade education. This plan could result in layoffs of
50,000 teachers statewide.
Tuition for community colleges would double. Bus routes and
summer school would be eliminated.
California is 48th among the states in the amount spent per
student. At the same time, California has the dubious
distinction of being the state with the biggest prison
population.
Over the past 20 years California has built 23 new prisons
and only one new university.
The only area of public spending that Davis didn't propose
cutting is the prison system. Davis is actually calling for a
$40 million increase in the state prison budget.
He is moving ahead with plans to construct a new $595
million prison in Delano. He has approved building 965 new
death-row cells at San Quentin--at a cost of $220 million.
--Photo and story by Bill Hackwell
Reprinted from the May 22, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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