when I die, bury me in my straight-leg britches
Apparently, nothing important is happening right now. Because the front page of this Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle featured a massive multi-part story on wine. And then there was an article on the Contra Costa school cuts on the side. Wine? Budget cuts? Yup, I sure live in California.
I'm not sure how far this has spread in the news, but California's schools are being screwed over right now. A great deal of them don't fit the 'No Child Left Behind' standards, and I know wisteria_ has mentioned this too in Georgia, but I can't help but imagine that California might have larger problems -- a great deal of students today don't speak English as a first language, or at all. Even up to the high school levels. I will always remember my first day of kindergarten, coming to class and I couldn't find anyone who spoke English. The Latino minority has become the largest minority ever, and a great percentage are 1st or 2nd generation immigrants. I'm not sure of the exact statistics, but it's soon to become a majority. So we have people who are perfectly proficient in Spanish, taking the STAR tests and the SAT9s and the HSEEs and goodness knows what...in English. So they score badly, because they don't know the gorram language. Then the schools they attend get ranked poorly, and receive none of the "incentive money". Which they're desparately in need of, from their campuses to their staff to their supplies to their technology. I've been disgusted with the California school system ever since I've been old enough to understand it.
Recently we've had the massive budget cuts. They even affected the UC system, that now, for the first time ever, is forced to reject applicants whom under normal circumstances would be admitted -- because of fiscal reasons. [I so wittily commented after Jasmine became Governor of California on AtS last year, that maybe she would do a better job than Grey Davis! Hah. Foot, meet mouth.] These budget cuts ironically came after a massive bond measure was passed in Marin -- to refurbish the campuses. So now all the elementary, middle, and high schools are being rebuilt and spiffed up, while they are losing teachers because the district can't afford to pay their salaries.
But it's the worst in Contra Costa county. Their district is cutting all extracurricular sports, arts, music programs, counselors, and libraries. For each and every school. Contra Costa is in the east bay, and is known for underage crime and gangs. I've talked to people from that area who affirm that football kept them off the streets. Or playing saxophone. Or whatever. If nothing is done, those won't be schools anymore. No one will show up.
Which all nicely fits into the massive fucked up logic that the state's budget for schools keeps being cut year by year, while the prison budget is the ONLY one that has risen. Out of all areas of the economy, more money has been given to no one but the prisons.
And there's also the fact that while LA, the most spread out city ever, has ONE school district -- and Marin County has 18. Eight-fucking-teen. We don't need that many! Half of the county is taken up by National Seashore/Parks! And another quarter by George Lucas and his huge-ass Skywalker Ranch [the interior of which apparently looks like Naboo, according to Dadmac who visited there recently for a business deal with Lucasfilms]. So basically, there's the rich districts for the children of the yacht clubbers from Ross and Kentfield and Belvedere and Tiburon and Marinwood, and the poor districts for the working class families in San Rafael and Novato and...um. Other cities.
The main reason BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] doesn't go to Marin? In the '70s, when all of the cities voted on it, the citizens of Marin declined because they "wanted to keep the riffraff out". GAH.
Also, John Walker Lindh was from Tiburon, which is all sorts of fucked up.
Uhm, this wasn't a planned rant. Really, it wasn't. Well, now that I've procrastinated THAT hour away, I should probably go eat dinner. Heh.
I'm not sure how far this has spread in the news, but California's schools are being screwed over right now. A great deal of them don't fit the 'No Child Left Behind' standards, and I know wisteria_ has mentioned this too in Georgia, but I can't help but imagine that California might have larger problems -- a great deal of students today don't speak English as a first language, or at all. Even up to the high school levels. I will always remember my first day of kindergarten, coming to class and I couldn't find anyone who spoke English. The Latino minority has become the largest minority ever, and a great percentage are 1st or 2nd generation immigrants. I'm not sure of the exact statistics, but it's soon to become a majority. So we have people who are perfectly proficient in Spanish, taking the STAR tests and the SAT9s and the HSEEs and goodness knows what...in English. So they score badly, because they don't know the gorram language. Then the schools they attend get ranked poorly, and receive none of the "incentive money". Which they're desparately in need of, from their campuses to their staff to their supplies to their technology. I've been disgusted with the California school system ever since I've been old enough to understand it.
Recently we've had the massive budget cuts. They even affected the UC system, that now, for the first time ever, is forced to reject applicants whom under normal circumstances would be admitted -- because of fiscal reasons. [I so wittily commented after Jasmine became Governor of California on AtS last year, that maybe she would do a better job than Grey Davis! Hah. Foot, meet mouth.] These budget cuts ironically came after a massive bond measure was passed in Marin -- to refurbish the campuses. So now all the elementary, middle, and high schools are being rebuilt and spiffed up, while they are losing teachers because the district can't afford to pay their salaries.
But it's the worst in Contra Costa county. Their district is cutting all extracurricular sports, arts, music programs, counselors, and libraries. For each and every school. Contra Costa is in the east bay, and is known for underage crime and gangs. I've talked to people from that area who affirm that football kept them off the streets. Or playing saxophone. Or whatever. If nothing is done, those won't be schools anymore. No one will show up.
Which all nicely fits into the massive fucked up logic that the state's budget for schools keeps being cut year by year, while the prison budget is the ONLY one that has risen. Out of all areas of the economy, more money has been given to no one but the prisons.
And there's also the fact that while LA, the most spread out city ever, has ONE school district -- and Marin County has 18. Eight-fucking-teen. We don't need that many! Half of the county is taken up by National Seashore/Parks! And another quarter by George Lucas and his huge-ass Skywalker Ranch [the interior of which apparently looks like Naboo, according to Dadmac who visited there recently for a business deal with Lucasfilms]. So basically, there's the rich districts for the children of the yacht clubbers from Ross and Kentfield and Belvedere and Tiburon and Marinwood, and the poor districts for the working class families in San Rafael and Novato and...um. Other cities.
The main reason BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] doesn't go to Marin? In the '70s, when all of the cities voted on it, the citizens of Marin declined because they "wanted to keep the riffraff out". GAH.
Also, John Walker Lindh was from Tiburon, which is all sorts of fucked up.
Uhm, this wasn't a planned rant. Really, it wasn't. Well, now that I've procrastinated THAT hour away, I should probably go eat dinner. Heh.