[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

And the news comes from out of State!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

calgov2002:

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[DoughtyOne]

Out of state? Try out of nation, out of continent.

[Mark]

Vouchers would solve the state's problems.

[LibertyThug]

Yeah, I already know about it. Looks like I'll be stuck teaching in San Bernardino yet another year.
All of this while individual schools buy EACH teacher new laptops or copy machines for every classroom.
Local control of school funding isn't always the best idea.

[marsh2]

My daughter is a first year High School teacher. She loves to teach and has been given the highest ratings possible by her Principal, peers and students. They all came to support her when the school board looked at cuts. Although she got her slip, she is now on first on the rehire list if the school can find the money.

Such a waste of a fine teacher. If these young dedicated teachers can't find jobs in their field, California will lose a great resource.

I have also heard a rumor that all schools under 600 in enrollment could be closed. That would take out most of our county's schools. Kids would have to be bused for hours if that is the case.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Hats off to our "education" governor. You know those Dems, they are the only ones who care about our schools, infrastructure, environment, etc.

I can't wait to see the college recruiting campaigns for teachers because we "need" them. What a joke.

[CIB-173RDABN]

"Education accounts for roughly half of state spending, so schools are where the pain is being felt first.

---

Half the state budget goes to education, and they say there is no fat to cut...

[Mister Baredog]

It would not be so calamitous if Californian schools were not woefully underfunded already, ranking 41st in spending per pupil out of the 50 states.

MONEY is not the answer. Open borders and labor unions, along with incessant unwillingness to REALLY improve education(even a proven plus like English emersion was a huge fight), all of these things have brought it to this. We are screwed in so many ways now, this is just one of them. IMO one party rule is a BIG part of the problem.

[thinktwice]

For California Freepers, one thing we can do is dump the governor. For recall petitions, click on ... http://www.recallgraydavis.com

[thinktwice]

What is that saying, "All roads lead to Baghdad"?

And now -- in this thread -- it's all roads lead to http://www.recallgraydavis.com

[thunders]

I love how everyone is so quick to blame Bush for problems within the school system. Our current president did not cause these initial problems. And he simply cannot just take a chunk of the budget that is needed elsewhere and hand it over to the public education system. Personally, I like the fact that Bush isn't pushing a huge budget for the public education system. It is lacking in a lot of things, and I think it needs an overhaul--much of in that we need to start rethinking our plan to rely upon the government to educate our children instead of us doing it ourselves.

Yes, my fiance and I plan on homeschooling our children. I know you guys have probably heard this argument, and many of you feel the same way, but I just get so upset at people...and sometimes I just need to get my thoughts out...

I don't even understand how people can believe that they can rely on the gov. to educate their children, while they are asking for tax cuts and the such from that same gov. There is simply not enough money to go around...and I feel like Bush is placing much of it in the correct places for our current world situation....it's just time for people to get off their *ss's and quit whining and start to help in the education of their own children...

Sorry guys, guess it's time for me to step down off my soap-box now...

[Bullish]

But never do they mention the cost to the state of educating millions of illegal aliens.

If you can't face the real problem, you'll never sove it.

[Kuksool]

As far as I'm concerned, Kalifornica's government school problem is poetic justice. It serves the NEA right for making life difficult for homeschoolers.

[ScottinSacto]

"There is simply no fat to cut, largely because of a statewide tax revolt in the 1970s that capped spending for social services, sabotaging America's former leading school system."

WTF???? Sabatage??? How about somebody asking the damn question what the hell they already do with a BOATLOAD of cash? I don't even have kids, but for the pleasure of building a house, I had to pay a school impact fee of more than $10,000....that ain't including the taxes already paid. This reporter can bite me.

[mvpel]

From The LA Weekly:

Instead of working this problem out, the notoriously vindictive Gray Davis actually countersued local school districts, trying to scapegoat them (a strategy thrown out by the judge). Worse, Davis overruled the advice of his own attorney general, who offered to thriftily represent the state, and instead hired his overpaid hack cronies over at O'Melveny & Myers -- a rest home for retired and failed Democrats (from Warren Christopher on down to Kathleen Brown) and a firm that has pumped thousands of bucks over the years into Davis' political campaigns.

Charging $345 an hour for its attorneys and $140 for its paralegals, O'Melveny's crew ran up $6 million in legal fees by the beginning of this year (when Davis' office stopped publicly reporting the scandalous costs of their services). By my calculation, if Davis had spent the $6 million on textbooks alone, he would have reduced the shortage by 50 percent. Some legal experts predict that when this is all over, the state will have spent "tens of millions" of taxpayer funds on these private lawyers to defend itself against the indefensible.

[green team 1999]

women and children to the boats,......sorry,no teachers.

the california ship is taking water fast,real fast!

[Happy2BMe]

Tsk tsk tsk . . .

[Gritty]

There is simply no fat to cut, largely because of a statewide tax revolt in the 1970s that capped spending for social services

This is the first I ever heard California capped spending for social services. I thought they opened that floodgate a few years ago when the dot com boom was in full swing, Davis was in his first term, the judges had thrown out the propositions trying to control spending on illegal aliens and the Legislature was increasing social service spending by 20% a year.

Maybe I missed something?

But, the article says it was the fault of Prop 13 or some such thing under Reagan, so I guess we have to believe them.

*Sigh*! It's the nasty ole tax revolters fault (once again)!

[Koblenz]

There are several points I think that need to be made:

1) California relies way too much on income taxes. What happens is that during the good times, when stock options are being cashed in, California rakes in the tax dollars. But during the bad times, tax receipts are way down. This forces tax rates to be increased, furthering the cycle. It also causes a lot of people to leave the state. California's personal income tax rates top out somewhere around 10%.

2) Property taxes. Most states rely on property taxes. But in Calfornia, the Proposition 13 has really created distorions. I'm not against lower rates, but the way things work in CA is pretty ridiculous. Taxes on a house don't go up very much, until someone sells the house, at which point they go way up. So you can have two people living in identical houses next door to each other, but with radically different tax bills if one of the owners has been there since 1982 and the other since 1999.

3) School spending. Technology does about zip in grade schools except cost money. Kinds in sixth grade or less really don't need to use laptops, and they really should learn the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic, etc.

[BossLady]

"Let's cut the rhetoric of 'Leave No Child Behind' [President Bush's campaign slogan on education] and 'fess up to the reality that all children will be left behind," said John Deasy, superintendent of the relatively successful Santa Monica-Malibu school district in southern California, which now faces the loss of more than 200 teachers.

I figured it would be alllllllll Bush's fault....let's not look at the governor or anything like that..../sarcasm