Free Republic

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...

ov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Thursday to end the so-called dance of the lemons in which unsuccessful teachers move from one low-performing school to another and principals are powerless to stop it. ...Those bills were two of more than 100 pieces of legislation that Schwarzenegger acted on Thursday. The governor still has 503 bills that he needs to sign or veto before the Saturday midnight deadline. SB1655 authored by Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena, will give school principals the flexibility to reject a voluntary transfer of a teacher and change hiring deadlines so that promising new teachers can be hired...

Schwarzenegger will have final say on bill greenlighting state aid for illegal immigrants. Legislation that would make illegal immigrants eligible for financial aid at California public colleges is waiting a decision by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill — named the California D.R.E.A.M. Act — extends more rights to undocumented students, which legislators estimate numbered almost 600 across the UC system last year. Currently, those students are allowed to obtain in-state residency status if they meet certain criteria, including attendance at a California high school for at least three years. However, undocumented students are not currently allowed to compete for state...

Imagine a company president being ordered by the board of directors to hire any misfit who knocks on the door. It's a crazy scenario -- but it's exactly the way many California school districts operate when an unsuccessful teacher is quietly edged out of a school. As long as the teacher agrees to leave voluntarily, union rules require the principal of any other school in the district with an opening to hire that teacher. The practice, common in large and mid-size urban districts, is so reviled by principals that they've given it a derogatory name. "It's called the Dance of...

FRESNO - The founder of a California charter school was sentenced today to 14 years in state prison for siphoning off taxpayer and private funds she was supposed to be using to educate disadvantaged children from the San Joaquin Valley to Sunnyvale. Fresno County Superior Court Judge R. L. Putnam said former Gateway Academy Superintendent Khadijah Ghafur had shown sophistication, planning and leadership and an ``absolute complete lack of remorse in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt'' for her embezzlement schemes. Today's sentencing of Ghafur and another Gateway administrator, who received probation, close the cooked books on the Fresno-based...

When California voters approved Proposition 39 six years ago, it was mainly known for lowering the threshold for passing school bond measures. These days, though, the law is in the legal spotlight for pitting two camps of public education against each other in a high-stakes fight over school buildings. Proposition 39 also requires districts to share their campuses “fairly” with charter schools, alternative public schools that are self-governed. How to share fairly is at the center of the dispute. The rationale behind the law is that charters serve students who otherwise would attend district-run schools. Therefore, they should be entitled...

More than half of California's K-12 public education students enrolled in free or reduced-price meal programs last year, the first time that the majority of youngsters were approved for assistance, according to state and federal officials. California was one of a dozen states where the majority of students were certified for such programs, said Jean Daniel, a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman. In Contra Costa, almost a third of all students signed up for the federally subsidized lunch and breakfast programs, the third school year in a row the county has seen an increase in the percentage of students. Nearly...

SAN FRANCISCO California State University secretly paid millions of dollars to outgoing campus presidents and top executives, in some cases keeping them on the payroll up to five years after leaving office. Neither the chancellor nor trustees at the nation's largest public university system publicly disclosed the "transition pay," lucrative consulting contracts and tenured teaching positions, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday. Chancellor Charles B. Reed said his office spent as much as $4 million over the past decade for "special assignments" and paid leave for former campus presidents and vice chancellors. Reed said in a June 23 e-mail to...

A high-decibel debate among education officials, politicians and advocates of bilingual schooling that led to the recent yanking of funds from the state Board of Education boils down to one difficult question: How should California teach roughly a quarter of the state's public school population -- students who are not native English speakers -- how to read and write? The persistent issue moved into the spotlight last week when former governors Gray Davis and Pete Wilson urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to resist bilingual activists and stick with California's current approach to teaching English learners how to read and write. There...

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday appointed the president of a San Jose Hispanic university to the state Board of Education. David Lopez, 53, replaces the former board president, who resigned unexpectedly June 30. Lopez has been president of National Hispanic University since 2003. The school's goal is to increase college attendance of Hispanics and other typically underserved students. Schwarzenegger has been trying to shore up support among Hispanic voters as he seeks re-election. Also Tuesday, his campaign announced the formation of “Hispanic Families for Arnold,” a group of more than 60 Hispanic community leaders who support his re-election....

In a rare show of bipartisanship, former Govs. Pete Wilson and Gray Davis asked state legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to stand behind curriculum standards and testing they credit with improving performance in the state's public schools. "Standards provide a measure of excellence regardless of one's skin color, family income or ZIP code. We believe that if we set expectations high, students will respond," Republican Wilson and Democrat Davis wrote in an open letter Friday. The governors' letter came a week after Democratic lawmakers stripped funding for the Board of Education from the state budget. Lawmakers had warned the board...

SACRAMENTO-– A California legislative committee passed a bill yesterday that would force all public schools to promote transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality on campus. The California Senate Education Committee approved AB 606 on a 7-to-2 party-line vote, Democrats for, Republicans against. The author is Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, a Los Angeles Democrat. AB 606 would authorize the California Superintendent of Public Instruction to arbitrarily withhold state funds (around 2/3rds of a school district’s budget) from any district that does not adequately promote transsexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality in its school policies. AB 606 repeals the current state law prohibiting transsexual, bisexual, and homosexual...

My Note: The following was posted on the Tom McClintock's website on June 19, 2006. SB 349 was blocked by Democrats the same day as the quoted speech (April 2005), never making it out of the Senate Education Committee (there were only 3 Republicans on the Committee, out of 12). Senator McClintock authored SB 349, which would rescind the in-state tuition subsidy for illegal immigrants attending state universities and community colleges that was granted by AB 540 in 2001. However, a bill by Senator Gil Cedillo, SB 160, would allow illegal immigrant students to receive state sponsored financial aid in...

FREEP this Survey by the governor's office... Please take the time to do this... It took me about 30 seconds! And is so critical! Debbie To my California friends: This is so simple...all you do is listen to the menu, press 4 buttons and never have to talk to a soul...and it has the potential to help defeat this bill if we all stick together...Some of you, may well, have already done this...but just in case not, I wanted to alert you to the opportunity... Hey friends- Regarding SB 1437 Homosexual Curriculum Ed. Bill This horrendous Bill passed the Senate....

The California legislature is voting on this bill June 6th. It will likely pass, and then it goes to Governor Schwarzenegger's desk to be signed into law. By simply taking a few seconds to call this number and automatically registering your opposition to this bill, you can help influence the governor to veto this extremely damaging legislation. Remember, when you call the governor's office (916-445-2841), you'll want to press the numbers in the following order: "1" - for English, then "2" - for legislation, then "1" - for SB 1437, then "2" - for "no"! (Again, that's: "1, 2, 1,...

This past week, a judge in Oakland, California said he thought the state’s high school exit exam is flawed, because it failed to account for English language learners’ inability to read the test. That is, since the test requires that those with limited English skills take and pass the test in English, it discriminates against those students. Never mind that, no matter where you go in this country, English language skills are an important part of success. Never mind that a student should be able to read the high school diploma they are receiving when they graduate. Insuring competence in...

A growing number of schools and community colleges in California are refinancing voter-approved bonds to raise extra cash, a practice many financial experts say puts an additional burden on taxpayers and may violate state law. The process, known as cash-out refunding, is similar to refinancing a home mortgage to lower monthly payments and take out equity in cash. It's popular because the school districts get extra money - frequently millions of dollars - without going back to the voters. Most use the money to cover construction cost overruns, but critics say California law limits the use of refunded bonds for...

SACRAMENTO – The reappointment of state Education Secretary Alan Bersin to the state Board of Education was confirmed by a Senate committee yesterday, despite union opposition stemming from his years as head of San Diego schools. The California Teachers Association and the California School Employees Association, which represents non-teachers, urged the Democratic-controlled committee to reject Bersin because of his legacy in San Diego. “During his reign in San Diego his leadership style was extremely divisive,” Lyssa Sassman of the CTA told the committee. “It divided the community. It hurt teacher morale, and it did not significantly improve student achievement.” The...

SACRAMENTO – The settlement of a landmark lawsuit two years ago created a $200 million state fund for emergency repairs in low-performing schools throughout California, but little of the money has been spent. Leaky roofs, broken toilets and other problems requiring urgent repair were cited in the suit. Only $247,000 has been spent from the fund – far less than the $30 million paid to attorneys in the suit. Some lawmakers think the fund, which is scheduled to grow by $200 million a year and reach $800 million by 2008, is not being used because school districts with tight budgets...

LOS ANGELES – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday embraced Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's school takeover plan, giving the mayor a highly visible ally in his drive to gain control of the Los Angeles Unified School District. “Mayor Villaraigosa has shown bold leadership,” the Republican governor told reporters in Sacramento. “This is exactly the kind of thing that ought to be done. “I am 100 percent behind him on this and if there's a bill that comes down here, I will sign that,” Schwarzenegger said. “We want to help him in that move, because we all know that it is inexcusable that...