Our local school district is in deep shit.

Because of the declining tax revenues in CA and less money from the state, our school district (Glendale Unified) is looking at some serious cuts and layoffs. We attended a school board meeting last night and they are predicting that they are looking at a 53 million dollar deficit in two years unless drastic measures are taken.

California once was the leader in public education -- I think we are number 50, now. It is very sad to see this. Luckily, our kids are in a Spanish immersion program so the cuts won't be too bad, but they are talking about 30 kids in a classroom. I can't imagine how kids could learn much in that environment.

Very sad.

Kindergarten and 1st grade had one teacher. 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade were in another classroom with another teacher. 5th grade was in its own room with 1 teacher. 6th and 7th grade were combined in another room with one teacher and then 8th grade was by itself with its own teacher.

It just seems like that is too many kids for one teacher to try to teach.

in the room were doing homework and assignments.

.
... Laura Ingalls.
.

.

day! I lasted one year, then went to fifth grade where I had 32 students :-).

I'm all for democracy, but direct democracy for a state of 50 million people does not work. limiting the state lege to 2/3s votes for tax increases is just stoopid. It's the first lesson the country learned after the Revolution, called the Critical Period ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Critical_Period ) and nearly led to the dissolution of the union by 1787.

Direct democracy breaks down at any population level larger than a small city. Study your http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?Itemid=287&id=462&option=com_content&task=view">Montesquieu (a name you probably haven't read since college government class). California screwed up allowing direct democracy on budget questions. A mob can't write a budget.

I find that I am rapidly becoming a Whig.

:eyes:

Does it?

The federal government has no direct responsibility for California schools, prisons, or most of the other things it's spending its future money on. If we gutted the military, slashed it to the bone, and got a massive peace dividend, California would still be fiscally self-fucked.

I mean besides Chinese creditors. It all comes from us. The more $$ we give to the Feds. for its imperial military, the less there is available for schools either through Fed. or state taxes. The amount of money people can pay in taxes is limited and the more that goes for expense A, the less there is available for expense B.

"Mister Christ" will do. ;)

While it's true both are paid for out of taxes, there's simply no link between the taxes California authorizes (or fails to) for its schools and the defense expenditures made by the federal government. You're assuming it's a zero sum game in which, somehow, if we built fewer aircraft carriers the voters and legislature of California would suddenly be enlightened about the need to fund their public schools.

Oh, but if only human nature worked that way. First, it wouldn't free up all that much money. Defense expenditures are causing deficits, not higher taxes. Secondly, if people were inclined to think logically about how government expenditures helped or hurt the nation, the dingbat voters in California would never have saddled themselves with those crippling "tax revolt" rules in the first place.

When Reagan became our Governor our schools were in the top 5 nation wide. Within 8 years of Reagan and friends at the helm our schools slipped down to the bottom 10. Howard Jarvis & voters further sank funding with Prop 13. Our subsequent benighted Governors and Legislators have done very little to rectify this situation.

You can still stand on our backs and claim you're not the worst in the nation, because you're not. We are. :banghead:

So suck it, Colorado and... and... and two other states! :sarcasm:

We're trying to get a one cent local (county) sales tax voted in to help bail our schools out.
The usual right-wing, anti-tax crowd is out in force.

All non-teaching staff have been laid off.
Volunteers are cleaning bathrooms and halls, also working in the office and library.
My wife and I are volunteering as 'teachers' assistants' in the kindergarten classes.
We're broke and it isn't going to get any better in the foreseeable future.
As usual, the kids suffer.
:-(

My wife and many other parents volunteer in the classes, and we all pitch in and purchase needed school supplies for the classrooms.

They are talking of a tax to help bail out our schools, too -- but I know that the right wingers will fight it tooth and nail.

A crappy situation all around.

Hey, this is Alabama!
Sports is a religion here.
IMHO, if they need help, that's the first thing they should have cut.
Folks would vote for a tax increase in a heartbeat to keep the sports programs.

and leave basketball and football alone. Will that help in Alabama? Some sports are sacred, I know.

Of course we'll have to leave in a couple of token "girl" sports, title 9 and all that.

But music? gone. Plays? gone. Cheerleading? hey, wait just a minute!

:hi:

after educations like this.

to get a real education, though.

with a nominal interest rate.

It will work out.

In any classroom it often works out that out of 10 kids, you have one genius (who can be an asset or a liability) and one completely fucking asshole sociopath.

In a classroom of up to 25 kids, odds are you'll have two geniuses, who can huddle in the back and talk calculus or astrophysics or help mentor some of the regular kids, and two assholes that you can put on either side of the room and keep at least one eye on. Beyond 25 you're getting in 3 asshole territory and you're sunk. They've got you outnumbered.