Perhaps it was our heteronormative suburban upbringing that prevents us from grasping what it is that all these college students here in California are in a uproar over budget cuts to the UC and CS system. After all, our political awakening was Prop. 13 and the threat of being shuttled off to summer school if that ballot measure was defeated. Lobbying out on the school yard on behalf of Howard Jarvis (and of course, our home-owning parents) became a passion.
Anyway, a couple of education-related items:
It is all but impossible to fire even the worst teachers if they’re members of United Teachers Los Angeles and work in the L.A. Unified School District. The union that spends millions on radio and TV ads telling you that more funding is needed “for our students” has forced the cash-strapped district to spend $3.5 million over the last 10 years “trying to fire just seven of the district’s 33,000 teachers for poor classroom performance.” Of those, “only four were fired, during legal struggles that wore on, on average, for five years each. Two of the three others were paid large settlements, and one was reinstated. The average cost of each battle is $500,000.
Read the rest here from Joel Engel which includes an interesting take on the LAUSD and Black History month.
And maybe we should re-think this whole school funding thing. At the very least, could the taxpayers spring for some white-out?
H/T: Instapundit.
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2 comments:
Hilarious!
Dean,
What people fail to realize is that Prop 13 is probably saving California from even worse financial disaster. Because the assessed value of properties can only rise slowly, when there is a housing market collapse, the market price for most homes is still above the assessed value. As a result, government doesn't take a hit on tax revenue, the way it does with income taxes and sales taxes during a recession. That the left won't admit this leads me to conclude that there only goal is unlimited taxation to the point of confiscation.
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