K-12 Education

Number of children in our public school system: Approximately 1 million

Increase in public school enrollment during the last five years:  17,300

Increase in public school enrollment over the last year: 4,316

Additional costs beyond those in the 2007-09 budget needed to maintain existing K-12 education programs : $1.5 billion

Cost of class-size-reduction Initiative 728 (cut in the Senate budget): $753 million

Cost of staff for K-4 classrooms (cut in the Senate budget): $297 million

Reduction in assistance for property poor school districts in next two years: -75%

Cost of teacher-pay-raise Initiative 732 (cut in the Senate budget)): $360.9 million

Number of teachers in our public school system: Approximately 55,000

Number of teachers and staff who could lose their jobs in the Senate budget: 2,500

Percentage Senate budget cuts to school district budgets after one-time federal stimulus dollars: As high as 3.5%