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# Experts say schools flawed
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/experts-say-schools-flawed/
- Published: 2008-03-15T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T18:53:12.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Education, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*photo courtesy; governor's office DEEP CUTS: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday at the Milken Family Foundation released a list of recommendations by a panel of educational experts on how to improve California public schools. The governor has recommended cuttting education spending by $4.3 billion. School staffing facing major cuts across state*

*By Daily Press Staff*

SANTA MONICA A panel of education experts says California’s public schools are fundamentally flawed and need deep changes to properly serve the state’s 6.3 million students.

The panel says one way to improve schools is to make the state’s education bureaucracy more efficient and accountable. The experts also recommend training teachers better and making preschool universal.

The recommendations are part of a long-awaited report released Friday by the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who unveiled the report at a press conference at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica, appointed the panel nearly three years ago to overhaul California’s educational system.

“Everyone in this room knows that education, like other state programs, is going to face cuts next year,” Schwarzenegger said. “We would not have to put the schools or the teachers or the entire education system through this agony, through the uncertainties, on this roller-coaster ride where everyone has to hold on for dear life, if we reformed the state budget system once and for all.”

The report says more money is needed, but its release comes as the state struggles with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit.

Schwarzenegger wants to cut education spending by $4.3 billion in July. Saturday is the deadline for schools to notify teachers that they may be laid off because of budget cuts.

As many as 20,000 teachers, administrators, librarians, school nurses and other support staff could be laid off across California in response to the cuts, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said Friday.

During a visit to Inglewood High School — where more than a dozen teachers could lose their jobs — O’Connell said Schwarzenegger’s proposed cuts to education could be devastating for schools across the state.

“We have already learned that for many school districts up and down the state, summer school is going to be significantly scaled back, if offered at all,” he said.“Far too many athletic programs, too many programs in the arts, far too many of our AP (advanced placement) classes... far too many of our resources that we’re going to need — technical education — will not be available.”

Schwarzenegger said the “out of whack” state budget necessitates cuts across the board, although he lamented the education reductions. He also said he hoped layoffs would be carried out only under a “worst-case scenario.”

Schwarzenegger said he wants to overhaul the budget with the goal of creating a “rainy day fund” whenever there is a surplus to bail out the budget when there is a deficit.

According to the California Teachers Association, the proposed cuts would mean the loss of $560 million for the Los Angeles Unified School District through 2008-2009, equivalent to $946 per student.

LAUSD has sent out layoff notices to 3,000 administrative staff members, though none to teachers, according to reports.

But hundreds of teachers around the Southland have already received notices that their jobs were in jeopardy — including 400 in the Anaheim and Santa Ana districts and 150 in Inglewood. “School districts up and down this state are sending out pink slips to tens of thousands of hard-working, dedicated teachers, administrators and school staff, not because our state faces a spending problem, but because we face a priorities problem,” O’Connell said.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/031508-06_02.jpg)

; governor's office DEEP CUTS: Gov. (Photo: Photo courtesy)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 15, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/031508.pdf?ref=smdp.com)