After three months of strenuous deliberation, California legislators finally passed a new budget Feb. 9. The budget seeks to rein in the state’s soaring debt by cutting programs that Californians can live without—including, it seems, education.

The debt delivers an $11.6 billion cut to Kindergarten through 12 schools. Legislators have made it clear that the cuts can’t be helped, and their assertion is undoubtedly reasonable. But the fact remains that our schools can’t afford to get any weaker.

Thankfully, not all hope is lost; emergencies often lead to innovation. The Oracle has looked into three promising plans that may tide schools over until the economy swings back up. Controversial and a little unusual, these ideas have been rejected in better days—but better days are far away.

Taken in the context of education, the phrase “corporate sponsorship” seems a little evil. However, corporate sponsorship does not translate into indoctrinating first-graders with the ideals of Coca Cola. Schools can receive thousands of dollars for simply naming a facility after a company: for example, a high school in Miramar, Florida received $500,000 for naming rights to its football stadium. In deals of this nature, corporations usually just ask to sign a gym wall or a scoreboard. Frankly, that kind of advertising bounces off kids faster than public service announcements. Even the most vehement critics of in-school advertising must admit that between naming a cafeteria and cutting an art program, the lesser of the two evils is obvious.

When one takes longer days into account, a four-day school week doesn’t significantly reduce the amount of time students spend in school. The plan cuts costs significantly in transportation, insurance and utilities. In particular, rural districts would see a big change: although gas costs have gone down, many schools in central California still have trouble busing their students around. As blasphemous as the four-day week may sound, it has already been implemented successfully in more than 100 counties nationwide. In one example, Kentucky’s Webster County, saved $300,000 in five years—that kind of money could send a student to the most expensive university in the nation for nearly eight years. What’s more, the very same county saw its standardized test scores shoot up since it switched to a four-day week: it has climbed from 111th to 53rd in the state. Although a shortened week isn’t recommended for districts that are getting by, it may help struggling districts teach more efficiently while saving money at the same time.

The classic teen cause is finally gaining popularity—as a method to bring new money into the state, that is. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has introduced AB 390, a measure to legalize and tax marijuana. In simple terms, Ammiano wants the state to treat marijuana like alcohol. If AB 390 were to pass, anyone over the age of 21 would be able to purchase marijuana from licensed vendors. More importantly, though, heavy taxation would result in much-needed revenue. California’s marijuana crop is estimated to be worth $14 billion; in other words, it’s worth $8.3 billion more than California’s famed vegetable industry. Accordingly, marijuana taxation would add upward of $1 billion to the state’s revenue. Most people are familiar with the classic pro and con arguments pertaining to this topic, but some people still wonder if it’s immoral to fund schools with pot money. The answer is simple: no, not really. Hard liquor money, cigarette money and lottery ticket money already goes into education. Whether or not one believes that marijuana is worse than all those things, it’s safe to say that students generally don’t know or care where the money for their desks is coming from.

Upon first glance, these solutions all sound a little bizarre. But if one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, one shouldn’t judge a plan by its title, either.

—Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the staff (assenting: 31; dissenting: 8)