Posted on 10/03/2006 12:52:06 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Money may not grow on trees, but a bumper crop of paperwork will soon be flourishing in California's newly expanded school garden program.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week signed a bill that will set aside $15 million for grants to schools that want to establish gardens for their students to tend.
Instructional gardens can be a perfect place for young students to learn everything from biology and nutrition to elementary math and research skills. Hundreds of California schools already have them. But this well intended legislative gesture makes a colorful illustration of how Sacramento decides what's best for local schools and then buries them in unnecessary bureaucratic requirements.
(snip)
The bill sets up a process through which interested schools can apply for grants of $2,500 to $5,000, depending on their enrollment. The state superintendent of public instruction will receive the applications and decide which schools will get the grants. But rather than trust the superintendent to distribute the money wisely, the Legislature has given him some help.
First, he must convene an "interagency working group on instructional school gardens," which will include, but not be limited to, representatives of the state departments of Education, Food and Agriculture, Health Services and the California Integrated Waste Management Board (think composting). And the superintendent is authorized, but apparently not required, to establish a separate "advisory group" of agencies and groups that would include the California Environmental Education Interagency Network.
Now for the grant application . . .
(snip)
. . . Pretty soon, the whole thing becomes a back-breaking mess that keeps the schools from focusing on what they should be doing: educating our kids.
Maybe the garden program should include one more requirement: an essay contest on how bureaucratic weeds, allowed to grow out of control, can smother public education.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
I can think of a few "keywords" I'd like to add to this, but good taste prevails.
Another not-so-good-government law brought to you by Fabian Núñez, author of the Global Warming monstrosity (AB 32).
I'd really like to know the history on his staffers.
Yep, and it's fresh and organic!!
Yep. And all that for an of appropriation of only $15,000,000.
I wonder what the process is for the other $131,930,000,000.
Yes. Its all for the children.
Aides to Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, who sponsored the bill in the Legislature, say the application requirements, advisory committees and post-grant reports are necessary to ensure that schools get the most out of their garden grants. We wouldn't want them growing carrots when peas make for a better lesson on natural selection.
Ah, yes... the children!
Perhaps teaching them to speak English or read might be a better alternative?
EGD... do you know who Núñez's staffers are?
Aides to Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, who sponsored the bill in the Legislature, say the application requirements,......
I think it should have read:
Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez sponsored the bill in the Legislature, his aides say the application requirements, ......
For the record the official bill sponsor is listed as "Protection and Advocacy Inc."
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