good evening. welcome to "kqed newsroom." i'm scott shafer. tonight we're going to talk about drought burnout water wasters and grass, the kind you mow, not the kind you smoke. and later in the show we're also going to talk about school funding and reforming teacher tenure with the state schools chief. but first let's talk about lawns. ever wonder how a state with millions of acres of desert ended up with so many green lawns? well, the answer, in part, has to do with nostalgia. sally taylor lives in the shadow of mt. tamalpais. she can identify the types of birds and hawks that fly by and point out the native plants that grow on her five acres. >> the drones i love. they've all come up in recent

years. and that to me is a tremendous compliment, because madrones don't like people and houses. so if a madrone grows, you feel like you're doing things right. >> she spends much of her free time in her garden as her mother once did. >> my mother who had a house on this same ridge and who came from the east, was determined to put an eastern garden on a california hillside and she did so. so we had three lawns, two of which were very large indeed. >> but with no end in sight to the drought taylor is breaking with tradition. she's gotten rid of her lawn. like many californians, lawns themselves were east coast transplants. >> this is levittown, pennsylvania a new suburban community. >> after world war ii, when home ownership became a symbol of middle class achievement, lawns were a key feature in new housing developments. >> so all the houses are very much the same, and it's

patriotic. we just came back from the war, and now it's embedded in our culture that we are taking care of each other by keeping our neighborhood looking the same. everybody had to keep their lawn a certain length and weed-free. if you didn't, you would be either ostracized or at least get some dirty looks from your neighbors. >> sarah sutton is a landscape architect and author of "the new american front yard." she says levittown developers saw grass as an instant just add water landscape and included a free year of lawn care in the price of every home. sutton says as more people headed west, they looked for homes with green lawns, even in the desert. ironically it was drought mitigation efforts that began in the early 20th century that allowed grass to grow in arid climates. >> drought is a grave national problem. correcting it a mammoth undertaking. >> when those mammoth water

projects were completed, water seemed abundant and lawns became a staple of the american west. >> this would never have happened without the hechechie, without the valley, without taking the water to allow us to have an oasis where it really shouldn't have been allowed to happen. >> today i'm declaring a drought emergency in the state of california. we are in an unprecedented very serious situation, and people should pause and reflect on how dependent we are on the rain, on nature and one another. >> for ken honeycutt, that reflection led to a change. >> before we started this was just open lawn like the next door neighbor's was. >> the retired truck driver says the drought pushed him and his wife to pull up the front lawn in front of their san lorenzo home. >> and trust me coming out to mow it once every two weeks was not a chore that i liked doing after a while. we wanted to have a front yard

that was pleasant and colorful, and in the process of doing so, the creek bed came into play when we realized we could do a recirculating creek bed. >> honeycutt took advantage of an incentive by the east bay utility district. they pay for some of the cost of replacing grass lawns with more drought-resistant landscapes. >> they're trading their lawn for a waterfront landscape. he gets those savings not just today and tomorrow, but for years to come. >> honeycutt received a little more than $500 from his water district, a tiny fraction of what it cost to redo his yard. water districts around the state have been offering rebate programs for years paid for by state grants and rate-payers. since the drought began bay area water districts say they've seen a sharp rise in businesses and homeowners taking advantage of these lawn replacement programs. >> right now during this drought, we rely both on conservation and also on extra

water supplies to get us through this really difficult season. and so those extra supplies from the sacramento river are very expensive, and so conservation helps keep everybody's costs down. >> sutton, the landscape architect, says the drought is giving californians a chance to rethink the water-guzzling, traditional front lawn. >> now, come on. come on. >> sally taylor is now one of a growing number of californians turning to artificial lawns. >> i was shocked at contemplation of it. i never thought that i would have an artificial lawn. i thought that it was really very wicked and immoral. [ laughter ] >> but the drought prompted a change of heart. >> if there hadn't been a drought, i doubt i would have but it is, and we don't know how long it will go on. >> taylor has made peace with her decision. >> it was so perfect when it went in that it frightened me. i had the feeling that i ought to spray-paint all the stuff behind it with green paint to make it look as good as the

lawn, because i have never had a lawn that looked as good as this lawn. which made me kind of nervous. no it took some getting used to. but i don't regret it. >> ken honeycutt says he couldn't be happier with his choice. >> it's nice. nature's so important. and in the city environment, you know, you just don't get it as much as you'd like to. and any additional birds and hummingbirds and bees and, so i imagine they're coming for, hopefully, for the plants. hopefully, we did a good job making their environment better. i mean, i would like to think so. >> lawns throughout california are going to get a lot browner as the drought continues. next week, state mandates take effect requiring water districts to cut usage in some cases as much as 36%. paul rogers, managing editor for kqed science and environment writer for the "san jose mercury news" talking about how these cuts may alter the landscape

literally and figuratively, right? do you ever think you'd be spending this time much talking about people's lawns? >> well the drought is like an earthquake. it's a natural disaster and we need a quick response. in many cases, we're running out of water. the lawn is where 50% of the water is in terms of residential use. it's the low-hanging fruit the easiest place to get the most savings. and as we see the governor's mandates hitting all these different cities who are facing fines of up to $10,000 a day if they don't meet their targets, a lot of cities around the state are expanding programs to buy back people's lawns and to pay them to tear out their grass and put in drought-tolerant plants. just this week, the metropolitan water district of southern california, which has 19 million customers -- it's the biggest water district in california -- they announced they're going to spend $350 million a third of $1 billion paying people $2 a square foot to rip out their grass. that's going to save a lot of water, and they have 60,000 people on a waiting list right

now. >> and that's going to be an incentive for really wealthy people in beverly hills, do you think? >> anybody. the wealthier people have the biggest yards and can afford to pay the highest bills. so, it doesn't matter. you want to get rid of that grass. >> other than financial incentives and threats, what works to motivate people? what have we found in other droughts that really, you know gets people to change their behavior? >> well one thing is just the public understanding how serious this is. you know this is the worst drought in the 164-year history of california as a state. our snow pack is at 5% of normal. the rainfall in most places is half over the last four years of what it should be. we don't know if we're in the fourth year of a four-year drought or the fourth year of a ten-year drought. australia just had a drought that lasted 12 years. so any water that we don't pour on our grass right now is water we can drink next year or the year after or the year after or it's water we can put out fires with we can give to hospitals, we can run the sewer lines with. this is serious, and we don't have the luxury of big, green lawns anymore. >> but you know, we've looked at

some of the statistics. people save water and then they kind of slide back. you get this kind of a drought fatigue or burnout that happens. how can water districts, the governor, anybody else combat that? >> the good news is a lot of these savings whether it's replacing your lawn or putting in low-flow appliances, they lock in the lower demand forever. you know, if you switch out your old, six-gallon-per-flush toilet with a new 1.2-gallon-per-flush toilet when it starts raining again in a year or two or three years you're not going tear the new toilet out and put the old one back in. and the good news is, what that has meant is that over the last 30 years big cities like l.a., san jose, san diego, san francisco, they're using as much, if not less water now than they were 30 years ago, despite the population growth. and there's a lot more low-hanging fruit. these lawns there's a lot of old appliances. when you replace this stuff, you actually are shrinking the water footprint, which is really important. >> it is important. and of course people are paying a lot of attention, keeping an

eye their neighbor's water use as well. the santa clara valley water district says it's hiring more people to handle all the calls it's getting at its drought hotline. the district has a team of inspectors looking for water waste. dan steiner, a student at uc berkeley's graduate school of journalism, spent some time with one member of that team. >> i do not like being called a water cop. i am a water waste inspector. to me, a cop is somebody who enforces laws and stuff. we don't do that. we inform, we educate. so i am a water waste inspector, not a water cop. thank you. [ laughter ] >> well i respond to about 10 to 15 cases a day.

most of the cases are excessive water runoff broken irrigation and watering within restricted hours. once we get to the location, we look to see if we see anything. so, if somebody calls in and says they're watering their car without a shutout nozzle we'll look to see on their water hose if they have a positive shutoff nozzle. then we'll go to the door knock on the door, try to make contact with the customer. and if not, then we leave a door hanger. we also like to check to see, you know, as you can see their lawn is pretty healthy. so we see that they're definitely watering. and we just hope that they're watering within the restricted hours. so let's go see if we can get somebody. so, nobody's home. doesn't look like anybody's

home. so, what i'm going to do now is just indicate what the violation was. so, i'm just going to mark down that they were watering within the restricted hours of 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. >> we have a big county, almost 2 million residents. so there's a lot of reports that are coming in about water waste. oftentimes people don't even know that the sprinklers go off at 5:00 in the morning, and maybe they just aren't around at that time. maybe they don't go outside to see that they've got a gusher. some people certainly won't take this seriously until there are fines being issued. but i think most people want to do the right thing. >> right here, okay. and so, somebody reported about their irrigation system out here

as being used during our water restricted hours. so i was just trying to get information on either like the property manager or facilities manager anybody that's in charge of your irrigation. >> no, i'm just the shift supervisor. >> okay, no problem. now, what a moisture meter does, this pretty much can tell if you're overwatering your grass. so, what you do is plug it in. it says this is wet. so this is completely unacceptable. so, we definitely need to get in touch with the person responsible for irrigating. we're going to silver creek country clubs. now, this is actually going to be the second time that i went out to this address and apparently he has not gotten this fixed. so i will definitely make note of it. so the last time, so it still

looks like he's still having that same problem. it's a broken sprinkler heads, and it's causing all this flooding right here. and you can see right here. okay. normally the biggest fights are over the phone. it's after i left the door hanger, and they'll call back and again, they're upset because they really don't understand what the door hanger means. they just see the notice and they just want to know, how much is the fine going to be and they want to fight the case. and i'm like, it's not a case to fight. it's just stop wasting water and you won't ever see me again. hello? >> yes? >> how are you doing? i'm from the santa clara valley water district. i'm here about the excess runoff you have right here in front of your home? [ inaudible ] >> excuse me? >> i'm sorry i can't -- he said

just leave it on the door. >> i will just leave it on the door, okay? >> okay. >> thank you. if my job security is dependent on this drought, the way it's looking, i'll probably be here for a while. >> and paul rogers, as we saw right there, not everyone is complying or answering the door, fixing their broken sprinklers. so what then? >> well, it's not a good idea to ignore this guy, basically. the water district is the wholesale water provider for 2 million people in santa clara county. they don't send you the bill. there's 13 retailers the cities and private water companies that send you the bill. and what they're doing in the district is they're keeping a list of everybody who gets these tags. and if you have two or three of them, basically they then report you to the city or to the water company, in this case, the san jose water company and those guys can either fine you -- the city of san jose can fine you $160 for violating these kind of rules. sacramento, they're fining people up to $1000 for watering on the wrong day.

or the other thing they can do which is quite interesting, is put a flow restrictor on your meter. the san jose water company is saying after one warning that they get from these kind of guys, they're going to start slapping these things which are like the boot that are put on a car right, if you haven't paid your ticket. >> so like it or not, you're going to reduce your water. >> it won't stop, but it will reduce the flow going into your house. so don't ignore this guy. >> there's a lot of interest in water wasters and water shaming. is there a list? will there be a list? if the media want to know, who are the top ten water wasters in santa clara county, will that be available? >> unfortunately not. the way that the laws are written in california, the individual water usage by home and by business is not public information any more than your pg&e bill is. the only thing you can get is if you have a public agency, like a city, you can actually find out as a reporter how much water the individual city council members use, if they are sending you -- >> public officials. >> yeah. and some people have begun to look at that stuff. and what we've found is there

are some city councilmen in riverside and places like that with giant, green lawns and they're imposing rules on everybody else. but for the most part there's not any really egregious cases that i know of. >> let's talk about the weather for a moment. texas is getting all this rain flooding everywhere. they were in a terrible drought. what, if anything, does that mean for us here in california? and how much water have they gotten? >> well, to put the texas thing in perspective san jose got 13 inches of rain in the last 12 months. san francisco's had about 20. l.a.'s had 8. houston had 11 inches on tuesday night in 24 hours. >> wow. wow. >> so basically a year's supply in one night. there's a question over whether this is related to el nino. there are el nino conditions in the pacific right now. the stronger the el ninos are historically in california, the more rain we get. we had one last year but it fizzled out. the water in the ocean was warm. it didn't connect with the atmosphere to change the jet stream and bring storms. this year so far, it is connecting with the atmosphere, and a lot of scientists aren't quite ready to say it's certain

we're going to have an el nino but it's looking more and more likely. so, that's a good sign. >> yeah you know, it's always frustrating to me when you get a good storm and then everybody says, well that didn't do anything to solve the drought. >> right. >> is it possible that a really wet year like we're seeing in texas, could that solve our drought in a single year? >> yeah, it's a great question, and it could make a big dent in it. there's really, you know, sort of three things you need to fill up. you need to fill up the streams, first, to help the wildlife and that comes pretty quickly after storms. then you need to fill up the reservoirs. that takes a lot longer. but with one good wet year, you can do that. the last one we're not going to fill up in one year is all of the overpumped groundwater. >> we don't even know how much has been taken out. >> that's right, and places like the central valley, it will be 50 years before it's filled back up again. but if we had a good, wet year like 1997 -- you have to be careful because you have mudslides, people die in floods. we don't want too much, but a good soaking wet, like 150% year that would largely end the drought, but we just don't need another dry spell after that.

we need a couple of normal years. so fingers crossed. >> if you think about the psychology of that does everyone just go back to planting their lawns and washing their cars and all that? >> no. that's the good thing about all of these lawn programs and the low-flush toilet programs. once it's in it's in. it's like if you put an l.e.d. bulb in your house in all the fixtures, you never go back and put the crummy bulbs back in again right? you get the savings forever. or if you buy a hybrid car, you don't go back and say you know, i'll buy a used humvee. you keep the savings. efficiencies are good. and what happens with every drought is california becomes more efficient and laws begin to change. that's what we're starting to see now. the lasting impacts from this drought will be not only lawns removed, but we've had reform in groundwater rules. we're starting to require farmers to measure it and rural places to measure it and we passed the $7.5 billion water bond in november. that will spend a lot of money for things like new reservoirs water recycling, even

desalination. >> just a few seconds left, paul but if that doesn't happen, if we don't get a lot of rain, are we facing tough decisions in california? and what might those decisions be? >> absolutely. we're going to be looking at severe forest fires this summer and beyond if we don't get more rain. and we're also going to be taking water from farmers. right now -- >> that's already happened, right? >> yeah. it's going to be a much more severe taking. farmers who have senior rights going back to the 1800s are going to lose their water. because in the end we've got 38 million people and you cannot grow cotton and rice in the desert and say we're running out of water for los angeles and for the bay area. >> something's got to give. all right, paul rogers -- >> let's hope it's el nino. >> let's hope it is. paul rogers, managing editor for science here at kqed and environment writer for the "san jose mercury news." good to see you. >> thank you. it is graduation season and the season for putting together the state budget. this year the state has a big revenue surplus. california schools could get more than $7 billion in additional funding. joining me now to discuss how

that money might be spent is tom torlekson, the state superintendent of public instruction. good to have you with us. >> great to be here scott. >> as you well know, california has a new formula for deciding how much money school districts gets and it's intended to help districts with a lot of low-income, foster care kids, english learners. and yet, there have been studies that show that in the first rounds of that funding, it isn't really getting to the students that it's intended to help. how is the state going to make sure that it does? >> well, we have a system of checks and balances with the county superintendents and my office, ultimately, making sure that that does happen. i believe it is happening for the greatest part, that the money is going towards the students that need it the most kids from poverty, english learners, foster kids. and we're also seeing again, the chance with the budget growth to invest across the board in programs that are really exciting and meaningful. >> like what? what's an example of a program that this kind of money will really help you know, launch? >> career technical education. we used to call it vocational

education. just yesterday i announced $70 million in the bay area rich partnerships between schools, high schools, community colleges, universities. students are getting hands-on learning. it's learning with a purpose. it's critical thinking problem-solving. it may be in the field of computers, it may be in the field of engineering, it may be in the field of health care but students are motivated. their graduation rate in these programs is 95%. >> at the same time we have this persistent achievement gap for many years in california. we're not the only state that sees this, but white asian, high-income students doing much better on standardized tests and graduation than african american and latino students, kids who come from low-income families. how are you going to close that gap? what are you doing? >> part of it is the new state law that targets the fence, the new law you spoke of targets it towards the kids of greatest need. so that will be help. we've been narrowing the achievement gap. it's too slow. we need to do more. we've done legislation. i wrote legislation for

after-school programs to target the lowest 20% of schools in performance with extra money for after-school programs. we did the same thing on a quality investment act for california, and it worked really well. test scores went up. minority students went up faster than the norm, the regular students. so, we're going to invest in these students get them motivated. we also need to close a digital divide. a lot of the learning taking place in school now is done digitally and through the internet. and there's a digital divide. >> although there's some debate isn't there, about how much technology there really should be in the schools? >> i think it's a game-changer for the better. i really think it's going to make a huge difference. students can pace themselves. they can be right where their skills are and the computer guides them step by step to to higher proficiency. so, that's a game-changer and will also help close the achievement gap. we're putting in about $2 billion in the budgets to invest in more computers, internet access for our kids. >> i think everyone agrees that great teachers are really what make the most difference.

i know you were a teacher. >> yes. >> once upon a time. and last year there was a judge down in los angeles who ruled that the teacher tenure system, you know last hired, first fired, does not work, and that it makes it very difficult to get rid of what he described as grossly ineffective teachers. you're appealing. the state is appealing that decision. >> sure. >> tell me why. >> well i think the judge got it wrong in his analysis and so on an appeals process i think it will be overturned. but nonetheless, the goal is to get the best teachers -- >> how did he get it wrong? where did he go wrong? >> saying there's a causal effect and that there are certain groups of teachers that are creating an environment where students aren't able to learn as well as they should otherwise. and there is no real solid evidence or proof of that, in my opinion. i think at the same time we need to deal with ineffective teachers, and there are exciting programs we've put together to get teachers the professional development they need and to set benchmarks. if they don't meet those

benchmarks of improvement they're moved out of the profession. >> i think what they've honed on the low-income kids that we're trying to help with the funding formula, they honed in on that tenure at two years system that makes it very difficult to get rid of a teacher who is not performing well. why is that -- what's the upside of a system of really locking in a teacher after two years? >> well i think what's happening, originally, administrators in schools went from a three-year tenure in california and pushed for the two-year tenure because they wanted to be able to get rid of bad teachers earlier in the process. and so, now administrators who are skilled in personnel matters, they look at the candidates for teachers and instead of making them permanent or giving them a long-term commitment, they will say you're not fit for the profession right at the second year of the tenure process. >> do you think there needs to be additional changes to the tenure system? >> oh, yes, and we're working on that right now. in fact, again, just recently we had a labor management conference on how to deal with

evaluating teachers and moving the ones that are better up and moving the ones that are not performing out. >> if you look at how voters feel there was the usc/"l.a. times" poll, and very few people support the tenure system. 83%, i think supported making it more easy to get rid of ineffective teachers. now, i know that teachers hate being made scapegoats and they shouldn't be, but i'm wondering, is there a risk of the people with our direct democracy system going to the ballot with something that could be even more draconian than what you or the union wants to support? >> well i think, first of all, i've supported and strongly supported laws to make it easier to get rid of ineffective and bad teachers. so, that's a given and that's the background. i think when they see the progress we're making in looking at the capacity of the whole teaching workforce and building up the whole capacity to a greater level of effectiveness, that's where the good news is coming. and i think when the whole story's told, the public will say, you know this is smart. yes there needs to be some reform, but we're already

working on how to be more effective with our teaching. >> all right. we're out of time. thank you for coming in. >> good to be here scott. that's it for tonight's show. for all of kqed's news coverage go to kqednews.org. i'm scott shafer. thanks for joining us.

captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, may 31: with a deadline looming, the senate resumes the debate over the patriot act. in our signature segment, the growing business of gender roles and non-conforming fashion. >> i think people see me in a way that may actually be aligned with how i see myself. >> sreenivasan: and, the death of beau biden. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: corporate funding is prov