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As state funding has shrunk, California has had to turn to volunteers for their money and time to fill the gaps. Paul Vousden suggests the UK might follow suit.
As David Cameron's Big Society and its parent-founded free schools struggle into life amid a sea of funding cuts, just about everyone agrees that taking a close look at alternative national systems is essential. One might expect Scandinavia to be the ideal place to start - it is supposedly the inspiration for many of the Cameronian educational ideas, including free schools - but not many educationalists would turn instinctively to California. That, however, would be to make a mistake, as many more similarities exist between the Golden State and the current English educational scene than one might expect.
California has 30 years' experience of struggling to keep its schools system above water, surviving only because of a "big society" of charitable donations and the goodwill of teachers, parents and communities.
A combination of cuts and community contributions ought to sound familiar to those in Blighty. The Golden State has an international reputation for wealth - it is one of the richest states in the union. Companies such as Facebook are awash with money. But in educational terms, it is a state of "have-nots".
While other countries are only beginning to get used to the age of austerity, the state of California has teetered on the brink of bankruptcy for more than a generation, facing an annual struggle to agree any kind of budget.
Indeed, the state's parlous finances have had a detrimental effect for years on teachers and pupils at all stages of the education system, in a way that might horrify English headteachers facing cuts of little more than 1 or 2 per cent. The constant reduction in funding handed down to school districts from the state capital Sacramento means that educators and all those involved in education have had to find ever more inventive ways to bridge shortfalls.
It would be hard to exaggerate how desperate times are for Californian teachers. Only essential academic studies are funded by the state and anything falling outside this - sport, music, drama, even librarians - has been cut almost to the point of non-existence.
Stepping into the...