Ask anyone what they think of California, and you’ll probably hear a range of responses that praise the state’s natural beauty, diversity and playground-like atmosphere. Of course, you’ll also hear plenty of criticism that points to high unemployment, a dysfunctional political system that is rife with entrenched interests, a public university system that is loosing its luster, and an economy that is stagnant in many parts of the state.
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor of California, referenced several of these problems when he spoke on FORA.tv earlier this week at the California STEM Learning Network, a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. Newsom, who was the former mayor of San Francisco, spoke candidly about California’s current economic and political malaise within the context of the state’s once-proud public education system.
“At our best,” Newsom said, “California has not only been a state of dreamers but also of doers. Steve Jobs reminded us that as doers, we should always be in the business of thinking about the future.” However, since the 1980s, cuts in public education have flatlined the state’s ability to generate the workforce needed to compete globally.
How has California squandered its opportunities in education? The state doesn’t have a plan for growth, Newsom believes, because it doesn’t have a plan for cuts.
“When it comes to spending cuts, we need to understand where we are cutting, because we don’t want to cut into an artery, when we meant to cut into a bone.” The “artery,” Newsom believes, is the extraordinary cuts to higher education over the past decade, to the tune of $1.3 billion from both the University of California and California State University systems. While the cuts point to the state’s need to remain solvent, they continually harm the ability for California to prepare for future.
Newsom says that the projected price of tuition in 2014, almost $22,000 per year, will outstrip any resources the middle class has to put their kids through college—something, Newsom adds, that the Wall Street protesters understand.
Even though the economic and political situation in California has been problematic for some time, Newsom believes there is hope to get the state’s education system back on track and keep California a global competitor. He also believes the problem isn’t money, but instead a lack of ideas. One initiative that he started as Mayor of San Francisco, Healthy SF, didn’t have any funding behind it at first, but with some creative thinking, Newsom managed to find a way to provide healthcare to the city’s workforce.
Whether the investment is private or publicly funded, Newsom says, he believes that marketing smart ideas and eliminating a fear of failure are keys to investment in California’s future. “When I opened my first business, I didn’t have any money. I had to put pen to paper and market the idea and find investment. I also pondered this thought: What would I do if I knew I could not fail?”
Watch more from the California STEM Learning Network at FORA.tv.