has been very, very interested in the education crisis in california. howard, for the rest of americans who don t follow california s public education crisis and i call it a crisis as closely as you do, have we outlined the largest problems there? you outlined many of them. one thing you said $17 million. it s actually $17 billion. my mistake. there are all sorts of problems. the college tuition is rising through the roof. the population of students is becoming increasingly low income with lower parent education levels. it s in some ways a perfect storm. that s a good question because we know all across i states there are many states there are a handful that aren t suffering an education crisis in the public system. what made california s worse? some of it goes all the way back to 1979. and at that point, california
okay. governor jerry brown, big swearing-in. he has got a lot on his plate as the new governor there. the state s budget problems the top of his list. but he s also got education problems. what is his plan to fix the schools in california? you know, we talk about education here all the time, public education. california is a big problem. here s a taste of just some of the issues affecting california classrooms. number one, $17 million in cuts from public school budgets during the past two years. 21,000 teachers laid off because of those budget cuts. some of the lowest test scores in the entire country and crowded classrooms. and get this, one out of four students in california in the public school system are not proficient in english. i want to bring in howard bloom. he s a staff writer at the los angeles times, a newspaper that