Schools Suffer while Prisons Prosper

Schools Suffer While Prisons Prosper
By Michelle Valdez

"We are increasingly becoming a nation of first-class jails and second-class schools."
--Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

It’s no secret that Governor Gray Davis is sweet on the Prison Industrial Complex. In the center of an unprecedented California budget crisis, Davis takes state schools to the chopping block while the prison budget gets pampered. Davis has decided once again to increase the budget spending for California prisons while schools throughout the state suffer severe budget cuts, layoffs and tuition hikes. There’s something horribly awry with a state that gives the California Correctional Peace Officers Association [CCPOA] a 37% pay increase over the next five years while almost 30,000 teachers statewide are given a swift kick into the abyss of unemployment. Where are California’s priorities when it seriously considers building the spanking-new Delano Prison with a price tag of $595 million while the education budget stands to lose a staggering $800 million? California voters have made it evident that they "prefer cuts in prison spending over any other state program," according to a Fairbanks, Maslin Poll conducted last year.
On May 8, students, teachers, parents and concerned citizens will rally at the State Capitol Building to voice their opposition to the outrageous budget cuts in education. This "Day of the Teacher" will give students a chance to practice their First Amendment rights while learning firsthand about the legislature process. Members of the Oakland-based social justice organization, Education Not Incarceration, plan on meeting with state legislators on May 8 to talk about solutions for the budget crisis that would keep schools from losing so much money.
In a nation that spends $7,000 annually to educate a young person and $35,000 or more to incarcerate that same young person, there comes a point when we have to step back and re-evaluate the state of our educational system. There is no question that the amount of money spent on prisons is despicably disproportionate to the amount spent on our teachers and students. As taxpayers, we have a right to determine what programs can be cut and which programs are essential to the prosperity of the community.
Students and working class citizens cannot flourish when community college fees double, in some cases colleges are making these fee increases retroactive. The Prison Moratorium Project estimates that more than 200,000 students will either drop out or simply decide not to pursue a higher education due to this latest monetary hurdle.
Critical Resistance, a Bay Area non profit focused on ending the expansion of prisons, points out that putting certain prisoners on parole would save the state of California almost $24,000 per person. I’m sure that’s one science teacher’s annual salary that could’ve been covered if education became the apple of every legislator’s eye.
Gov. Davis has habitually denied prisoners release on parole and most often gives little or no excuse for each case. According to Critical Resistance, this tough-on-crime policy ignores the fact that it costs $26,690 per year to incarcerate someone in federal prison compared to a meager $2,769 to maintain that same person on parole.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office [LAO] conducted an independent review of the state’s budgetary crisis. In its report, the LAO uncovered plenty of pockets in the prison system that could easily take on the burden of cutbacks instead of sacrificing schools. If California began placing nonviolent offenders (with sentences of six months or less) on parole instead of automatically putting them in prisons, the state would save almost $10.7 million. If California was smart enough to discharge nonviolent prisoners just one month earlier of finishing their sentences, it could save a whopping $20.8 million. Change the amount of time to 12 months earlier and California would save $83.1 million, plenty of tax dollars to minimize teacher layoffs.
This is not a sudden change in the state’s spending tactics. In the last 20 years, prison spending has skyrocketed by 571% while spending on education (levels K-12) has risen merely 33.4%. The trends to privatize prisons have given law enforcement agencies and state governments the monetary incentive to continue outrageous spending on prisons at the expense of students. Remember May 8 and support the students and teachers of California because your tax dollars don’t deserve to be locked up in the perpetual prisoner machine.


Michelle Valdez is a member of Education Not Incarceration, an Oakland based social justice coalition dedicated to prioritizing education funding in California.