Written by Richard Rider, Chairman of San Diego Tax Fighters
For a variety of reasons, the number of California children under age 18 has been steadily dropping—every year from the 2004 peak. From an education spending standpoint, this rock-solid trend is a big deal. And it’s a big deal not only for public school age children, but also when deciding about the future need for expanding college facilities.
But first, let’s look at our youth population trend. Here’s a simple chart of the “18 and under” children in California during this century. This number includes babies, toddlers, and kids in both public and private schools. Many of these kids will later be seeking to go to college.
California Population under age 18:
Year Number
2000 9,267,089
2001 9,325,466
2002 9,365,142
2003 9,404,594
2004 9,418,497 (peak number)
2005 9,405,565
2006 9,370,884
2007 9,335,620
2008 9,321,621
2009 9,294,501
2010 9,280,524
2011 9,244,709
2112 9,193,419
2013 9,157,076
2014 9,133,697
2015 9,116,168
2016 9,086,671
2017 9,044,860
2018 8,989,955
Note that the “under age 18” number peaked in 2004. Since then, in every single year, there are fewer kids in California than the year before. And this is true even while our overall state population has been growing (ever-slower growing, but growing) annually every year this century.
While I don’t yet have the 2019 California child figures, the growth of the state population continued to slow, so it’s a solid assumption that the under-18 number continued to shrink as well.
So, why the push for massive new school building programs? Several reasons, but most importantly it’s part of the ongoing effort to shift routine school district costs to 30+ year school bonds.
In the not-so-old days, maintenance was a general fund cost for a school district. Now the unions are so powerful that they want essentially all the general fund money spent on the district public employees. And, after all, the number one financial backer of any school board’s majority are these very labor unions. Unions literally rule in most public school districts.
Stated another way, it’s not really about building new buildings with the bond money (though some will be built)—it’s about having the district taxpayers pay more for repairs, periodic building painting, and even the electronic gadgets that are taking the place of school books, freeing up district money for higher pay and to fund the badly underfunded public employee pensions.
Moreover, because of the lack of routine school district maintenance, our public school structures are aging before their time. Buildings that should last 60-80 years are shabby after only 20-35 years.
But back to the demographics. Consider our diminishing future demand for more bricks and mortar colleges. Sacramento is busy trying to expand our public college system by adding some totally new college campuses.
Furthermore, the far more efficient online education option is expanding at a dizzying pace—especially so in the liberal arts. Instead of needing to meet three times a week, a liberal arts class can meet once a week, if at all!
Clearly, we are going to need to educate fewer and fewer college students—and need fewer classrooms to provide such education. But the college building juggernaut rambles on without adult supervision. Why is no press outlet revealing this obvious con job?
For all of these reasons and more, it’s vital that Prop 13—the $15 billion California state school bond boondoggle—is voted down.
