Tom Torlakson supports a status quo in which an average of 2.2 of the state’s 275,000 public school teachers are fired each year for incompetence — a figure so ridiculous you barely need to add context. It shows the public school system is run for the adult employees, not the students.

Yet as he seeks a second term as state superintendent of public instruction against reformer Marshall Tuck, Torlakson continues to pretend he doesn’t like horrible teachers in the classroom and did something about it.

As he has done throughout his campaign, Tuck condemned Torlakson’s appeal of a Superior Court judge’s ruling in Vergara v. the State of California, overturning laws creating tenure in two years, governing dismissals and requiring layoffs by seniority. Those laws, he said, “have led us to a situation where we can’t have an effective teacher in the classroom” and are “crushing the hopes” of the state’s most challenged students. …

Torlakson agreed that when “teachers are not up to it, move them out” and said that he wrote and helped pass a law this year making it easier to fire “ineffective and abusive teachers.” The bill, AB 215, by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, dealt primarily with teachers charged with abuse, not poor performance.

That’s from John Fensterwald’s coverage of the final forum between the two Democrats running for superintendent. I’m glad he mentioned Torlakson’s, er, disingenuousness, but he was on the kind side. AB 215 has nothing — nothing — to do with getting rid of incompetent teachers. Fensterwald’s use of “primarily” to describe what the bill is focused on gives Torlakson a bit of cover he just doesn’t deserve.

“Nationwide, one study says, 3.7 million of those ages 18 to 34 will spend $500 less if they forgo insurance and pay the penalty during the first year of the new exchanges.

“‘Obamacare was supposed to make affordable health care available for everybody,’ said Caracappa, a 26-year-old community manager for a social-media website. But when he checked out the lowest prices available to him on the Covered California insurance exchange, he said there was ‘no way’ he could keep up with his finances and pay for health insurance, too.

“The cheapest Bronze plan is $138 a month, but has a $5,000 deductible. The cheapest Enhanced Silver plan costs $206 a month, with a $2,000 deductible.

“Both are pretty rich for Caracappa’s blood.

“‘Currently, my medical bills are zero,’ he said. ‘I don’t go to the doctor, and I have not gone to the doctor in years. can’t even remember the last time I went.'”

It is mindboggling that this wasn’t a key focus of the Romney campaign last year. The high deductible for young Obamacare enrollees is the least-reported huge downside of the fiasco. It basically means millions of healthy people under 40 will pay big premiums and in normal years get nothing for it — no help with their medical bills.

The temptation is strong to say that it is karma that young voters are going to be abused by Obamacare. But if they didn’t know it was coming, courtesy of our atrocious media and a somnolent Romney campaign, it’s not all karma. It’s also because of corrupt journalism and political incompetence.

By Chris Reed

The Sacramento Bee has a long story up on its website about an unpublished Legislative Analyst’s Office analysis that pooh-poohs Assembly Speaker John Perez’s plan to help middle-class families afford college.

“A massive middle-class scholarship program in the proposed state budget ranked last among options for increasing college access in findings prepared, but not released publicly, by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

“Pushed hard by Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, the middle-class scholarship plan was approved by a joint legislative conference committee as part of a wide-ranging budget deal struck by legislative leaders and Gov. Jerry Brown.

“Affordability is Perez’s target – not the college access issue cited by the LAO, said John Vigna, Pérez’s spokesman.”

Gigantic, generous and mysteriously anonymous

Incredibly, inexplicably and in keeping with California media traditions, however, Sac Bee reporter Jim Sanders never even mentions the UC Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan program.

If you’ve never heard of it, than it must be stingy and tough to take advantage of, right? Wrong.

Who qualifies for the UC Blue + Gold Opportunity Plan?

“UC’s Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan will cover your educational and student services fees if you are a California resident whose family earns less than $80,000 a year and you qualify for financial aid — and that’s just for starters. Blue + Gold students with sufficient financial need can qualify for even more grant aid to help reduce the cost of attending.”

What it takes to be eligible

“Be a California resident or qualify for a nonresident tuition exemption under AB 540

“Demonstrate income below $80,000 with financial need, as determined for federal need-based aid program

“Be in your first four years as a UC undergraduate (first two for transfer students)

“Meet other campus basic requirements for UC grant aid (for example, be enrolled at least half-time during the academic year, meet campus academic progress standards, not be in default on student loans, etc.

“Submit a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or, if you’re an eligible non-citizen, aCalifornia Dream Act application by March 2.

“Make sure your school submits a GPA verification form to the Cal Grant program, or download the form, have your school fill it out and send it to the California Student Aid Commission

“Under the plan, your systemwide fees will be fully covered by scholarship or grant money if you are in your first four years at UC (two if you’re a transfer student).

“The plan combines all sources of scholarship and grant awards you receive (federal, state, UC and private) to count toward covering your fees. If, for example, you receive Pell and Cal Grants and private scholarships that don’t fully cover your fees, UC grant money will make up the difference.

“Students with greater financial need can qualify for even more grant support to help defray other educational expenses (like books, housing, transportation, etc.) In 2010-11, UC provided grant and scholarship assistance averaging $14,514 per student to more than half of undergraduates.”

Isn’t Blue & Gold’s existence newsworthy? Only to Reed and Asimov

This is a huge and generous program. If Perez wants to supplement it, shouldn’t the media, yunno, mention that it exists?

Well, no. As far as I know, the only people working for California daily newspapers who routinely mention the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan when writing about college affordability are me and Nanette Asimov of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Asimov had a story a few years back in which she told a student protesting over tuition hikes about the existence of the program and the student burst into tears. Oh, the humanity. Maybe if the media actually mentioned Blue and Gold every now and then, our students would be less fragile and self-pitying.

By Chris Reed

One of the worst failings of journalists who cover California government is their failure when writing about budgets to always mention the automatic “step” raises that many public employees get each year, including most teachers, just for accumulating time on the job. These auto raises explain why government agencies depict any reduction in proposed spending increases as “cuts.” But they don’t explain why reporters do so.

In failing to offer this context, journalists let down their readers in many other ways as well. “Step” increases explain why pensions get so high and why so few public employees leave their jobs compared to those in the private sector. They also help explain why the productivity revolution never arrived in the public sector. The government status quo may be inefficient, but if it means there are lots of jobs where few people get fired and many/most people get automatic raises, then there is a huge constituency to keep it inefficient.

A reporter who provides context: It can be done

Which brings us to two very different recent stories in the California media.

Here’s what a sharp journalist sounds like when talking about how public employee pay works in California. It’s Will Carless of the Voice of San Diego in an Q&A with Bernie Rhinerson, a top San Diego Unified official:

“… three years ago, the board decided to hand out a whole slew of raises.

“Collective bargaining is give-and-take, and concessions.

“At that point in time, teachers gave up five days of paid work; they gave up almost 3 percent of their salary to get a promise of raises in the future. They got the kids through another year without big layoffs.

“And our teachers hadn’t had a raise in years.

“They had a raise in 2008, two years earlier.

“Well, that was before I came.

“They had had a raise, though.

“Well, that was five years ago now. Have you had a raise in five years?

“Sure, but now you’re repeating another canard. Most teachers in the district get raises every single year, just for staying alive. My wife does. Yes, I’ve had a raise, maybe one a year, but so have most teachers. As a communications person, don’t you think that we should start to be a bit more frank about terms like that? Why is an across-the-board raise any different (from) a step-and-column raise? They’re both raises.

“I’m not going to argue about the system in California.”

A reporter who is clueless: California’s sad norm

This sort of context should be required. Unfortunately, even in 2013, this sort of coverage of from the Los Angeles Daily News’ Christina Villacorte is still the norm:

“Los Angeles County employees, who are demanding pay raises after five years of going without, could see as much as $285 million in additional salaries and benefits in the coming fiscal year.

“The county is still negotiating with its various labor unions, but it provided that estimate to Moody’s Investors Service during an evaluation of its creditworthiness.

“County’s spokesman David Sommers emphasized that pay raises are a possibility — not a given.

“‘There are a number of proposals floating around about different scenarios of what salary and cost-of-living increases could look like,’ Sommers said. ‘That’s just one possible computation.’

“Sommers said the county provided that estimate because ‘the potential of salary increases — whether they happen or not — are things which rating agencies take into account when thinking about what’s next for us financially.'”

Don’t blame journalistic lapses on newspaper downsizing. It’s incompetence.

Note that Sommers apparently didn’t bother to tell Villacorte that, yes, lots of L.A. County employees got annual step raises, whether or not supervisors increased the broad pay scale of county employees in general after collective bargaining.

But why should he? Shouldn’t the Daily News reporter know this?

Of course.

But don’t blame this on the loss of “institutional knowledge” that resulted from the gutting of newspaper staffs over the past decade. I’ve lived in California since 1990. Even the Los Angeles Times at its bloated biggest — from, say, 1995 to 2003 — never routinely mentioned “step” pay hikes in writing about the state budget.

Why? Who knows? But it’s a black eye for California journalism whatever the reason.

By Chris Reed

If you had to fashion a nut graph to explain why so many local California governments are in deep fiscal trouble, here’s my nominee for an honest generic overview:

Over the past 20 years, the city/county/district’s political leaders have often acceded to union demands for higher benefits and pay, including retroactive increases in pension formulas and automatic annual raises typically granted just for accumulating years on the job. When the economy is strong and revenues increase, the policies are costly but sustainable. When the economy is weak and revenues level off or fall, the city/county/district is forced to reduce services or fight with powerful unions to impose layoffs. This often leads to budget gimmicks and/or questionable uses of bond funds — policies that protect public employees’ interests over the public’s.

Here’s a boiled-down version of the usual generic overview from California’s mass of mediocre journalists:

It’s the fault of the failing private-sector economy. It didn’t create enough tax revenue to keep the status quo going.

So now we have San Bernardino’s bankruptcy unfolding — with big court decisions possible this year —  and which journalistic outlet is doing the best job at giving a comprehensive, smart analysis of what’s going on, one that doesn’t buy the lazy dishonesty of overview no. 2?

Oddly enough, it’s Reuters, the international wire service that generally hasn’t particularly shined in its U.S. coverage.

This is from a March 19 story:

“LOS ANGELES, March 19 (Reuters) — The bankrupt city of San Bernardino, California, approved over $1 million in pay increases for police and firefighters despite claims it can barely make payroll, let alone afford the salary hikes.

“Monday night’s pay increases, for a city that appears before a federal judge again this week to plead for bankruptcy protection, are a result of its charter. It mandates that pay for safety workers must be tied to salary levels for 10 similar-sized California cities, all of which are wealthier than San Bernardino.

“The bankruptcy of the city 65 miles east of Los Angeles is a national test case on whether the pensions of government workers take precedence over other payments in a municipal bankruptcy. It is a high-stakes issue for pension plans and their beneficiaries, and for Wall Street bondholders who lend money to governments.

“Moves to have the city charter overturned, so the city can set its own pay levels, have failed to get the majority needed on the city council in the past year.”

Police morale at ‘low ebb’ — oh, the humanity!

This if from a Feb. 12 story:

“RIVERSIDE, Calif., Feb 12 (Reuters) — San Bernardino’s police and firefighters unions will ask a judge later this week to let them sue the bankrupt city over pay and benefit cuts, arguing that officials have abused bankruptcy laws to impose concessions on safety workers.

“A lawyer for the city’s police union, Ron Oliner, on Tuesday told the federal judge overseeing the case, Meredith Jury, that after recent cuts to police pay, pension benefits and staffing levels, morale in the force was at a ‘low ebb’ and they had no alternative but to try to sue the city in state court.

“An attorney for the stricken city’s firefighters union, Corey Glave, said they would do the same, in coordination with the police union.

“The large and growing burden of public pension debt, in addition to salaries and overtime — particularly for San Bernardino’s safety workers — has become a prominent issue in the city’s bankruptcy as it seeks to cut costs.”

This is from Reuters’ magnum opus, a Nov. 13, 2012, story that dug up all the bodies:

“The city’s decades-long journey from prosperous, middle-class community to bankrupt, crime-ridden, foreclosure-blighted basket case is straightforward — and alarmingly similar to the path traveled by many municipalities around America’s largest state. San Bernardino succumbed to a vicious circle of self-interests among city workers, local politicians and state pension overseers.

“Little by little, over many years, the salaries and retirement benefits of San Bernardino’s city workers — and especially its police and firemen — grew richer and richer, even as the city lost its major employers and gradually got poorer and poorer.

“Unions poured money into city council elections, and the city council poured money into union pay and pensions. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers), which manages pension plans for San Bernardino and many other cities, encouraged ever-sweeter benefits. Investment bankers sold clever bond deals to pay for them. Meanwhile, state law made it impossible to raise local property taxes and difficult to boost any other kind.

“No single deal or decision involving benefits and wages over the years killed the city. But cumulatively, they built a pension-fueled financial time-bomb that finally exploded.

“In bankrupt San Bernardino, a third of the city’s 210,000 people live below the poverty line, making it the poorest city of its size in California. But a police lieutenant can retire in his 50s and take home $230,000 in one-time payouts on his last day, before settling in with a guaranteed $128,000-a-year pension. Forty-six retired city employees receive over $100,000 a year in pensions.

“Almost 75 percent of the city’s general fund is now spent solely on the police and fire departments, according to a Reuters analysis of city bankruptcy documents — most of that on wages and pension costs.”

Reuters offers striking contrast with LAT’s Halper, Skelton

Have you ever seen anything in the L.A. Times as succinct as the Reuters’ copy quoted above in the Times’ coverage of California’s various local and state fiscal meltdowns?

Nope. The fish rots from the head down. Instead, you see Sacramento bureau chief man Evan Halper use the rhetorical tricks of a Democratic propagandist in writing about budget policies. And you have the incomparably compromised Sacramento columnist George Skelton, both the embodiment and the tool of the state’s intertwined political/media establishment, writing that he’s never met anyone who didn’t think higher taxes were the answer to California’s woes.

Too bad Reuters doesn’t cover Sacramento with the vigor it covers San Bernardino.