Arizona’s Craig Barrett: Don’t cut education funding (in California)

by David Safier

I smell a whiff of hypocrisy emanating from Intel's ex-CEO.

Craig Barrett, Gov. Brewer's education point man, wrote a letter to California's Governor Brown begging him not to cut funding for high school science.

"I am writing to express dismay about your proposed budget’s reduction of California’s high school graduation course requirements in science from two years to one year."

Shorter Barrett: School funding is important. If you cut too deep, you harm students' educations.

This is the same Craig Barrett who said funding isn't a problem in Arizona K-12 education. Our last-in-the-nation per student spending won't get in the way of improving student performance.

[Barrett] said the prime goal of the council will be to get Arizona to adopt core national achievement standards for students, and then, using those as benchmarks, to make sure their performance improves.

But Barrett, while acknowledging Arizona is "not terribly high" on funding per student compared with other states, rejected the idea that more money is at least part of the answer.

Shorter Barrett: You can maintain and raise student performance without raising school funding.

California's per student funding is higher than Arizona's, so, using Barrett's Arizona logic, there should be plenty of room for cuts. His advice to Gov. Brown should be, "California education is amply funded, so cuts are fine. Just don't cut science requirements." Unless, of course, quality education needs ample funding.