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The budget mess is heavily intertwined with education. Over half the budget goes to education. Twenty years ago, 39% went to education. Has the add'l percentage improved school performance? Hardly. I believe that it isn't more money that needs to be spent, but how it is spent. Right now, California spends only 60% of educational money in the classroom. Increase that allotment to 65% and we have just infused over $2.1 billion dollars where it is of highest priority. Much more fundamentally we need to change the way we reward teachers. They should not be solely rewarded on seniority but rather on merit. Good teachers must be congratulated with greater pay, greater benefits and greater autonomy. And bad teachers should be placed in another line of work. I ask those who wish to stay the course with the current system, "Why are you defending a failure?" The current dropout rate in California is 25%. The good people in Eagle Rock, Glassell Park, Highland Park and Garvanza are within LAUSD area. The dropout rate is 33%. That means that one out three students will never graduate from high school. Awful! In Pasadena we have a 55% dropout rate at John Muir High School. Over half of the students don't graduate. This is unacceptable. So what do we do about it? To Barack Obama's credit he mentioned merit based pay for teachers. He said this before the NEA convention where he was summarily booed. Why is this such a bete noir with the union? Is it a threat to their hegemony? It doesn't have to be. If unions find reform to be anathema they have to get real. Parents demand a better service. If they can afford it, they will pursue private education. If they can afford the homes in good school districts, they'll move. Unions must realize that their blind protection of bad teachers is diminishing their service to the community. We demand teachers be paid fully and given all the resources needed. BUT... We also demand that teachers perform well. This does not have to be a us vs. them scenario. We need to move beyond that. Now this is not just the teachers that need to step up. The bureaucrats and the politicians need to stop micro-managing our school system. Our current assemblyman, Anthony Portantino, has authored a bill requiring the inclusion of Italian-American figures in our state's history curriculum. Now on the surface that seems all well-meaning and harmless. Forget the fact that this comes across as a bit narcissistic being that Mr. Portantino is of Italian extraction. It opens the door for every Tom, Dick and Harry to have their piece of the pie leading to balkanization of our history. Why is this necessary? Why not teach... AMERICAN history! Perhaps if the schools in this state would stop apologizing for Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World, they may be able to mention that he was from Genoa which was an ITALIAN city-state thus giving Mr. Portantino a nod to his heritage. And then perhaps we could teach about Enrico Fermi and Marconi. Let's get serious. So rather than micro-managing our education, we need to stop dictating from Sacramento and return control to the local districts. All that we demand is that they teach the fundamentals and teach them well. What good is a high school diploma if you can't read or write? Yes you may be able to read and write but do you understand it? Are you able to think three dimensionally? In short, much like our energy crisis, one solution is not the cure-all. We must have a multi-prong approach. Merit pay, charter schools, vouchers, local control, vocational training. Everything is on the table. When you have a failing system, the choices must be available. You can't get much lower than what we have now. I don't think there is a lower grade than F. Let's get to work and make public education a thing of beauty once again. Step up!
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