Parents fight against cuts

GLENDALE — A group of local parents are gearing up for an intense and sustained advocacy effort to mitigate the governor’s proposed cuts to education for this year and next.

Parents Patty Scripter, Lynn Miyamoto and Sydney Swainston last week attended the annual California State PTA Legislative Conference, where the proposed funding cuts for the current fiscal year and the coming fiscal year were key topics on the agenda.

The parents listened to talks by state officials like legislative analyst Elizabeth Hill; Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project; and state Sen. Jack Scott, chairman of the senate education committee. They also visited the offices of several elected representatives, explaining their perspectives on education to local legislators like Assemblymen Paul Krekorian and Anthony Adams.

Now, Scripter, Miyamoto and other active parents will begin rallying more parents to their cause and encouraging them to express their views on education funding to their elected representatives before the state Legislature makes decisions on mid-year budget cuts.

“We’re volunteering to go to any [school PTA] at any time to talk about the issues,” said Scripter, past president of Glendale Council PTA and vice president for legislation of the PTA’s first district, which stretches from Burbank to Pomona.

The PTA’s message to the legislators was that Proposition 98 — a 1988 ballot measure that guaranteed a minimum amount of state funding would go to education — was the will of the voters and shouldn’t be suspended by the Legislature as the governor has suggested.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting $360 million from statewide funding for kindergarten through 12th-grade education this year and slicing about $4.4 billion from statewide education funding next year, in order to close a budget deficit expected to reach $14.5 billion by the end of next year.

Cuts of that magnitude in 2008-09 would require suspending Proposition 98.

Miyamoto, vice president for public service for the Glendale Council PTA, said she returned from the legislative conference energized and ready to bring more people into the effort.

She may return to Sacramento to follow up with legislators there, and she said she’d like to see students get involved, too, since cuts to education would affect them directly.

“This is really their future,” Miyamoto said.