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Press Room
Governor's Remarks at His Visit to Rock Creek Elementary School in Rocklin
Tuesday, 05/17/2005 10:30 am
Well, thank you very much for this great enthusiasm. This is amazing. I love it. Look at all these great looking kids you have here, and smart kids, really smart kids.
First of all, I just want to say thank you very much. It's wonderful to be here at Rock Creek Elementary School. What a terrific school you have here. Aren't you happy to be in this school?
I also want to say congratulations to Superintendent Kevin Brown, who is a terrific leader and a great school superintendent, who I just met earlier. I want to thank also our school principal, Dorothy Sutter. Thank you so much for showing me around here today.
Then we also have with us here school board members Todd Lowell and then Steve Paul. So I want a big hand also to both of them. Thank you very much.
I want to tell you all that this is my favorite, the most favorite thing to do as governor, is to go to schools to visit kids and to inspire kids, and I have been doing this for years. have been doing this for more than 20 years, going to schools, because 20 years ago or so I was working with Special Olympics, which is education, special education, for kids that have mental disabilities sometimes. And my mother-in-law started Special Olympics and so she sent me all over the country to go to schools and to help kids, and to give them medals and to get them involved in sports programs.
Then later on I got chosen by President Bush to be the chairman of the President's Council on Fitness, and I went to hundreds more schools all over the country, all 50 states in this country. And I loved going to those schools to teach them about physical fitness and to stay away from alcohol and from drugs.
And then later on I started After-School Programs in 15 cities all over the United States.
I always loved being involved with children's programs, and there are two reasons for that. One is because when I grew up I had a great childhood. I had great education, great schools, great teachers, mentors, and my parents were really good. They made me study hard and work hard on my homework. Even when I wanted to walk away, my mother hit me with the yardstick, and she said, "You stay home, and you're going to do your reading and your writing and arithmetics." I didn't like it sometimes, but today I'm very happy that she made me do it, because I can use that knowledge that I've learned then every day.
And then I also like to be involved with the kids' programs because, you know, when I came over to this country, I got everything. I got so many opportunities here, so I wanted to give something back. So this is why I was involved with so many different kids' programs, to give something back to this state.
Because remember one thing; as you grow up, it is very important to always think about giving something back. Not just how much can you make, how much money can you make, how much can you gain, how fast can you make your career grow? Not just that, but give something back. Always give back, because there will be kids around you that will be less -- they will have less than you have -- and there will be people around you that need help. So always give something back, always reach out and help people. Okay?
And what is extremely important is that you keep studying. You see, we grownups, we have the responsibility to give you the great education, that we have great school principals like you have here with your school principal Sutter, a great school principal, or to have great teachers like you have here in this school.
Now, this school is an exceptional school, and this is why I came here, because this is a perfect example of what good education is all about, where the teachers are always training and trying to improve themselves to be better teachers, where there's a school principal here that is a great leader. And this is so important in a school, to have a school principal that is a great leader.
So you have great opportunities, you have great education, great facilities. And I just was taken around from class to class, and I watched you working with your arts programs, building with the spaghetti noodles, buildings and airplanes and cars and all those things.
And then I watched one of your reading programs where you have this great individualized reading program, where you're focusing on various different individual strengths and weaknesses in the reading program. It's terrific. Very rarely do you see that in a school.
And then you see the math program. Wonderful, wonderful, classroom, and good discipline. The one thing that I noticed right away that I said to some of the teachers here is, "There is such wonderful discipline here. The kids are so well behaved." And they said, "Well, because we teach here character building," which is so important that you kids get that.
So anyway, the important thing is that you get here the opportunities. But then you have to do your job. This is the key thing. You have to do your job, because the one thing that no one can do for you is, no one can study for you. You have to do your homework, you have to do your reading, writing, and arithmetics. You have to study every day, and you have to listen to your parents, you have to listen to your teachers, listen to your school principal, listen to your coaches. Listen, listen, listen, and learn, learn, learn. Because no matter what you do in life, you have to understand that you need knowledge, you need to be smart.
And the way you're going here, I can tell you, I can guarantee you that each and every one of you is going to be very successful. Every one of you can be a winner when you grow up, because you're already a winner, because you're studying hard. No matter what your dream is, you can accomplish your dream, you can make your dream become a reality. If you want to be the top professional athlete, or a great actor, or a school principal, or a police chief, or a professor, whatever it is -- or maybe governor of California, how about that?
How about that? I tell you, that's a fun job right there. That's a fun job. Anything you want to be, any dream that you have, you can turn into reality because you're smart, because you educate yourself, and also because you are in the best place in the world, the most opportunities anywhere in the world you can have right here in California. So you can do anything, so keep up the good work. Keep strong, keep studying as much as you can. No matter what anyone says, you need brain in order to be successful.
I've met one time a friend that was a top professional athlete, and he said to me, he says, "I didn't go to school." He says, "And look at me, I'm a world champion, and I make millions and millions of dollars." He says, "And I didn't go to school, I hated school." I said, "Well, maybe you're an exception. Let's see." I met him 10 years later; he had no money, he was poor. All the millions of dollars that he had from his sport he lost, because he did not have the intelligence, the knowledge on how to invest that money, how to read reports, business reports, to be an entrepreneur and an investor. He did not know math, he couldn't figure his way around with numbers, because he didn't study, you see?
So it is very important for you to study and to learn. So keep up the good work. I am proud of you. I am really proud of you, of what I have seen today in the classroom. Keep up the good work, and I promise you, I'll be back.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.
Q and A, in a separate room
GOVERNOR: Well, first of all, let me just say this is a great pleasure to be out here and to talk to the children, to our elementary school kids. And as I've said out there, this is always one of the great pleasures, when you do that, to be able to talk to the kids and to go from school to school. And I've been doing this, like I said, for 20 years. And I enjoy now doing it even more so as governor, to be able to reach out, because education is extremely important to my administration. Education is very important to me personally, because I had great schools and great education when I grew up, and I want every Californian kid to have great education.
And this is why we have in my May Revise over 3 billion dollars added to education this year, and it is very important that we fund education as much as we can. Of course I wish we could have more money, because I think education needs more money. So do a lot of other programs.
But I think it's important to go and inspire and to go to schools like this one for instance here, that is what I call a 'perfect school' with great leadership. Dorothy has been a terrific school principal. The teachers are very inspirational here, and they're working really well with the kids. There is great, great discipline here, and great camaraderie and character building and all this. And I think this is a good example for the rest of the state.
So if you have any questions (SS)
Q: On the question of the budget and education spending, you obviously have more revenues that you thought at the beginning of the year. The CTA, now they're saying you promised a certain amount of money. And I know you put more money in education, but what -- I wonder, can you tell us what your thinking was on not giving them more, kind of defusing that broken promise allegation which they continue to hammer at and hammer at? And why not put more money in education instead of some other programs that you chose?
GOVERNOR: Well, I'm very happy that we have spent on education this year more than ever. I mean, our increase was over 3 billion dollars. And just to show you how serious we are about education, it's 44 percent of our budget, and when you look at transportation, it's 1.6 percent of the total budget. So you cannot even compare the two. So this just shows you how important it is. Our per pupil spending went up by $379. We're very serious about it.
But at the same time, we have to be fiscally responsible, we can only spend the money that we have. And as I said during my May Revise press conference, that we cannot spend one-time money on ongoing programs. That is the very thing that almost bankrupt the state of California just a few years ago, and we don't want to make the same mistake again.
Now, the guys that are the big spenders in our Capitol would love to go and increase the spending. They're also talking about taxing again. So they're back again, the same people that have created the mess that we were in just two years ago in California, almost bankruptcy. Those same people are now back at it again, trying to spend more money than we have, trying to increase taxes, spend, spend, spend, tax, tax, tax. It's the same ballgame again.
Well, the people have sent me to Sacramento to fix the broken system, and that's what we are doing. We are trying slowly to get our budget under control.
Q: What about Senator Perata calling for, possibly in the special election, letting voters decide if they want to increase taxes to pay for education?
GOVERNOR: Perfectly fine with me. I think, as I've said many times, that let the voters make those decisions. I think this is good. If the legislators can't make the decision, let the voters make the decision. So I wish him good luck with that.
I personally am against increasing taxes. We need to have full recovery in our economy in order to really get our mess taken care of. You know, we have a budget problem still, we have a structural deficit of 4 billion dollars. Next year, the out-year, will be very, very dangerous, because we will not have enough revenues. The economists are already talking about that the economy is coming down, it's not going up the way it was this last year. So we have to be very careful, and to keep our eye on the ball.
But at the same time, we must fund education, and we must pay attention to education. And this is why we gave extra money for -- you know, recognition pay for teachers and for school principals, then block grants so that our kids can be successful with the high school exit exams, and can be better prepared. So all of those things we are paying attention to, including increasing charter, the amount of charter schools, and vocational education.
Q: Yesterday Mike Murphy said that you're taking a serious look at endorsing the paycheck protection measure. Can you talk to us about how serious your thinking is on that?
GOVERNOR: I am extremely serious about education, and nothing else. Education, budget reform, redistricting reform and pension reform are my -- is on my agenda. He speaks for himself. I just can tell you that I'm today and always concentrating on education and not on the political side.
Q: But you have instructed him to look into this?
GOVERNOR: Well, I have people look into all kinds of things. But my attention is fully focused on education.
Q: You have said, though, you think it's a good idea, something that's worth looking into?
GOVERNOR: Right.
Q: Why is it worth looking at?
GOVERNOR: Everything -- every single initiative that people are talking about, or that they're putting on the ballot, is worth looking at. This is a responsibility of a governor. Like last year we had 14 -- last November we had 14 initiatives on the ballot, and we looked at all of them. We endorsed some, and we were against others. In the end we came in very late in some of those. I think that's what you have to do, because people like yourself, you ask me about those things, "What do you think?" I say, "I have to look at it, I have to see what does that mean, you know, what does it mean to the people out there? Is this a popular measure or not, is this something that we really need, or don't need?" So no matter what the initiative is, we always look at everything.
But I think that today is a day of education, and we've got to talk about education, because it's extremely important to let everyone know that we are spending more than 3 billion dollars extra on education this year, more than last year. We had the biggest increase of any program that we have.
And I did not break a promise, like they keep saying, that I borrowed 2 billion dollars and now I'm supposed to give it back this year. This is wrong, it's a right out lie. We all know that this year we fully funded transportation and education, and last year we didn't fund fully those two because we didn't have the money. It was the Assembly, the Senate, myself, and the Coalition for Education, all together, agreed to suspend Proposition 98 because we didn't have the money, and that eventually we will pay back to transportation and all the other accounts. So that's the reality. We did not make a promise that we will give it back this year, because I couldn't guarantee to give it back this year, because we didn't know how much money we'd have.
Q: (IA) made yesterday during the hearing, the Senate budget hearing relative to the amount of money that's available for education (IA) immigration is a significant drain, and that's why there isn't more. Would that be a position that you would share as well? What are your thoughts about that perspective?
GOVERNOR: We must provide education for everybody. It's that simple. We cannot go and say, "Look, you were born to an illegal immigrant, so you cannot get education." That's wrong. Every child ought to get an education. Every child ought to get equal education. Every child has to have the same opportunity to be successful in our state, no matter what, and this is why I insisted on settling the lawsuit, the Williams lawsuit, because we felt very strongly, and I -- look, I have been providing After-School Programs for 15 years. I see firsthand there are many schools that are not getting equal education, and equal books, equal computers, equal homework materials, equal quality teachers. So we've got to change that. There is no two ways about it. We want every school to have what this school has.
Q: But your budget (SS)
GOVERNOR: It has nothing to do with budget. Don't always talk about budget. Talk about the quality.
Q: (SS) the same funding.
GOVERNOR: Talk about the quality of education, not about the budget. You can't keep throwing just money at the broken system. You've got to talk about the quality of education. For years they have been putting money in education. I have been only around for a year and a half at this job. But for five years the lawsuit, the Williams lawsuit, has been going on. For five years. (IA) has sued the state because the state has not provided equal education to our children. That's pitiful. That's a shame. And all the legislators over there have just watched that and didn't do anything about it, including the governor.
Q: But your budget doesn't equal (SS)
GOVERNOR: So the most important thing is that we will provide equal education for all students and that we provide quality education, not just always talk about more money.
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