Posted on 01/17/2005 8:33:06 AM PST by NormsRevenge
It's all so terrible. The governor has proposed a budget that significantly increases government spending, but not nearly as much as the various government-dependent groups would like it to increase.
Listen to the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Children will go hungry. Union workers might actually have to retire with a defined- contribution plan (a promised amount of contributions) like most of us have in the private sector, rather than with the CEO-style, taxpayer-funded defined-benefit plan (a promised amount of benefits) they now have.
Overall state spending will go up by only 4.2 percent, K-12 education will go up only 7 percent (these are "cuts" only in the demented world of government accounting). To further the outrage, teachers would be rewarded based on merit, which means they might be held accountable for how well they teach The Children.
Spending for health and human services will only go up by 4.6 percent. There will be death, destruction, hungry people selling pencils on the street. Can't we please bring back the days of Gray Davis, when the state spent with wild abandon, never mind the consequences?
That's the tone, not only of the aggrieved interest groups that might feel the slightest sting from the governor's proposals, but of the media coverage. "With only a few sentences in his State of the State speech Wednesday night, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sent a shock wave through much of the education community," reported the Los Angeles Times.
That "shock wave" was the above-mentioned plan to tie teacher pay to merit rather than tenure. "It's a crazy idea ... just another blast at teachers," San Diego Education Association President Terry Pesta told the Times. --snip--
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
California should fall into the Pacific so relieve us of the most horrible news of a free wheeling government being restrained and controlled. If that's what you want to call what Arnold is doing.
And just what would you do? At least Arnold is trying. Remember, for many years the CRATS ran California in the dirt and to attempt to bring it under control with them still in control would be an empty task. Get rid of the CRATS that have a hammerlock on us and you would see change.
What Arnold really needs to do would be unacceptable to most Californians, cut base line budget by about 20 %
You got that right!
btt
How do we know the teachers ability when they have to teach a group that can't speak English. No, the 1st problem is to get the ILLEGALS out of the country.
Only one way to know. Remove ESL children from the federal testing standards. My guess is that California fares well in comparison to other states if ESL students (estimated at 25% of the California's K-12 school population) are ignored or at least factored on a prorata basis for the purpose of this yardstick.
I see nothing constructive for either Mexico's emigrants or California's taxpayers as a consequence of emigrating Mexico's poor into California. I see a variety of real problems including the economic chaos that California endures today. The two temporary winners in this dramatic, contrived, social upheaval: Mexico's ruling oligarchy and it's political class. The two looser: the average Mexican and the average US citizen.
What is equally painful is that the Austrian is going out of his way to avoid acknowledge the problem and if fact has declared that "no deportations shall occur". Schwarzenegger's only solution is to spend less thereby penalizing the willing learners of tax paying citizens. An admitted stupid idea for which Schwarzenegger gets an 3 on a logic scale and a 0 on a conservative scale.
Compounding the problem are birth rates. The average US birthrate is below replacement value and intrastate immigration into California has been negative since 2003. So why is the population of the state increasing? Illegal immigration and the dramatically higher birth rates of these immigrants.
The perfect storm is brewing and is best characterized by the education "problem" the state faces. The Austrian is simply hiding behind immigrant pride. He is unwilling to admit that immigration controls are necessary and that denying taxpayer supported services to illegal immigrants is both good business and sound politics. We are a nation of compassion AND laws.
The Fatal Flaw.
Interesting that you refer to him with the same label that I do.
You'd think that politicians in the United States would get tired of being up to their butts in problems that the Mexican government has saddled them with. And make the obvious conclusion about how to end the whole damn thing. All this agony over things that shouldn't even be on the radar, and aren't happening in Mexico.
For instance, do Mexican high schools have police on the rooftops to maintain order because of inter-ethnic tension, as the Temecula HS does? No. They don't have that, because...their country is not being overrrun by another ethnicity. And they wouldn't let it, even if it were an attractive place.
Only our country, our schools, our states.
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