The Pleasant Valley School District board decided to cut five days from the school year Thursday night in an attempt to alleviate the ongoing budget problems facing schools around the state. The shortened calendar will save the district, which encompasses Camarillo, approximately $970,000 in salary expenditures, a reduction of about 2.5 percent.

The district spends about 86 percent of its budget on employee salaries and benefits, a figure that is common across the state. Yet politicians and education unions continually cite “the children” when begging for additional funding, despite the fact that only about 14 percent of it is spent on students.

In seemingly every election big-hearted voters shovel taxpayer money into the black hole in an attempt to save California’s children from a substandard education, ultimately approving Prop 98 that diverts half of all the state’s revenues—approximately $50 billion—into funding the education industry. Every year, California’s schools seem to get progressively worse despite the extra infusion of cash, which is expected when almost 90 cents of every dollar ends up in the pockets of public employees instead of the classroom.

While the money doesn’t make its way to the children as advertised, they are the first ones to suffer from a cutback. In Camarillo, the 9,400 students get 5 fewer days to learn. Wouldn’t they benefit more if the school year wasn’t reduced, but expenditures on salary and benefits were?

Of course they would. But the education lobby cares more about keeping the taxpayer-funded gravy train chugging along than providing superior education for our children.