CSBA declines to name outstanding legislator for 2011
None deserving of award this year
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 24, 2011By:
Susan Aronson, 916-212-8937
SACRAMENTO, CA — No state legislator will receive the California School Boards Association’s annual award for “Outstanding Legislator” this year.
This is only the second time in the organization’s history that such an action has been taken.
“Unfortunately, there are no members of the Legislature who have been truly ‘outstanding’ in their support of public education in 2011,” said CSBA President Martha Fluor. “In many ways, the governor and Legislature have significantly impeded progress in public education.”
Specifically, the 2011-12 state budget eliminated more than $2 billion that had been designated for California public schools under the voter-approved Proposition 98 formula, prompting CSBA to file a lawsuit last month seeking to restore those funds.
“We can’t be giving awards at the same time we have to sue the state to follow the state constitution,” said Fluor.
Fluor was also critical of the Legislature’s passage of Assembly Bill 114.
She said that the passage of AB 114 reduced educational opportunity in California by ending the requirement for county mental health agencies to provide special education and related services to students with disabilities.
“Education is the key to our state’s future,” said Fluor, “and we need to keep moving forward, not backward.”
AB 114 also limits the ability of school district governing boards to budget and plan for the possibility of midyear budget cuts.