Where to, California?

I read with a type of horrid fascination the recent Bay Area Economic Profile for 2010. How is it that we can stand to have these statistics? "Change' is indeed needed- better by the existence of a viable 3rd political party. For me, that is (and has been) www.lp.org

Some stark facts tell the California K-12 education story:
• California ranks first in the nation in number of students (approximately 6.8 million); 48th in
expenditures as a share of personal income; and 50th in teacher-to-student ratio
• In K-12 education, relative to other U.S. states, California has a low per pupil expenditure
(ranked 47 out of 50)
• In 2007-08, only 68 percent of public school students in California graduated from high school. Each year more than 98,000 high school students, or nearly 20 percent of each class, drop out of high school
• Academically high-achieving countries are graduating 95 percent or more of their students and sending at least 80 percent of those graduated to college; in California, only about 56 percent of students are getting to college.