CA is a sinking ship.

You guys are pissed off? How about someone like myself who makes the deliberate and conscious choice NOT to have kids and still has to shoulder a ton of tax burden to pay for the (inefficient) education of the kids of those who decide, "oh, what the hell, let's have some"? That's offensive to me. If you want to have kids, you should shoulder 100% of the burden of raising them. It's called "responsibility", which has somewhere gotten completely forgotten about in this country.

One of the biggest reasons I made my decision (not to have kids) was so that I could give myself an "edge" to help myself get ahead in this world. As such, it's frustrating to see government ineptitude and inefficiency (and yes, an "entitlement mentality" from those with kids to some extent) sucking away at the benefit I should be able to realize as a result of my decision.

Hell, I wish I were so lucky and fortunate to afford a home in O.C. at all, but people have managed to screw up the housing market (and any possibility for homeownership and the benefits associated therewith) pretty good too, so that's pretty much off the table for the foreseeable future. So here I am - a guy in my late 30s with 7+ years of college education, two degrees including a Master's, working 50-60 hours a week in a professional job so I can not afford my own place to live and instead pay for a sucky education for everyone else's rugrats - then I get to listen to them b*tch and moan from their half-million dollar O.C. homes about how unfair life is. How 'bout some perspective guys?

Get over it.

Frankly, it is amazing to see liberals cry about taxes that are the direct result of the policies they most strongly support. They want to spend, spend, spend...and expect someone else to pay, pay, pay. Then cry, cry, cry...because it turns out that they are part of the "evil rich" the politicians they support are demonizing.

+1

And he'll be running for Governor again pretty soon. :(

Just about any issue we fact: Economic, social, political, environmental, health, energy, water, etc. we can trace back to illegal immigration, at least in large part. Jerry will only make that worse. Maybe he just wants to nail Linda Ronstadt again:D

Seems like a real tough issue. Everyone is really polarized on this issue...

We have all brought up so many different issues:
I don't want to pay for other kids education, having/not-having kids, CA/non-CA, illegals, peoples who cannot afford to live in CA but stay, etc, etc, etc..)

I guess all we have in common is that we like Porsches... ;-)
This is a good community so I wish you all the best...

This played a big part in our decision to relocate out of CA with our children. We went from all private schools to all public in Idaho. My kids even went to an urban high-school (downtown), literally 1 block from the state capitol building. No gangs, no metal detectors, and no graffiti. Top 500 school in the country, etc. There are choices.

I live in an area of CA that has good public schools, which my two kids attend. I have generally been impressed by the quality of the teachers at our school. That said, many of the problems the schools are having now can clearly be traced to the teachers unions.

Teachers work maybe 200 days a year, tops. They get two months off in summer, weeks off around Christmas, Spring Break, plus numerous "teacher work days" (funny, I thought their work was teaching) and "staff development days", full benefits and a nice retirement package. Teaching is not a job that can get you rich, but for those that choose to emphasize the "life" side of the life-work equation, it's a very good gig.

This makes schools expensive to run, and this expense is only going to keep rising. The unions have successfully fought every effort to increase efficiency...the education business is no more efficient now than it was 50 years ago. In the private sector, high and rising wages can only be paid for by high and increasing productivity, but in the public sector wages and produtivity are set politically, not by economics. The cost of providing eductaion is going to continue to rise faster than the cost of just about everything else because productivity growth is flat-to-negative but costs will continue to creep up.

Arnold tried taking on the big public employee unions shortly after taking office, but voters rejected his ballot initiatives. So Arnold made his peace with the big unions, as he had to. The CA public wants to have it both ways...they want good schools that provide secure union jobs, but they don't want to pay the increasing taxes that will be necessary to fund them.

"Teachers work maybe 200 days a year, tops. They get two months off in summer, weeks off around Christmas, Spring Break, plus numerous "teacher work days" (funny, I thought their work was teaching) and "staff development days", full benefits and a nice retirement package. Teaching is not a job that can get you rich, but for those that choose to emphasize the "life" side of the life-work equation, it's a very good gig."

Work a couple of years as a teacher and you'll change your "tune". You basically do not know what you are talking about. You parrot the standard whining about days off - translation: "Why aren't the schools providing free day care every day". When do you think lesson plans and test and paper grading/correction get done? And conferences with parents? And after school clubs supervision and extra tutoring? Who do you think gets the classrooms ready/secured at the beginning/end of the school year - hint it ain't the janitors! When do you think the mandated (by the legislature voted in by the citizens) professional development - continuing education gets done? There are few financially comfortable public school teachers; find one and it usually means they have a working non-teacher spouse. A typical teacher's retirement package is such a joke that many teachers work until poor health forces them to retire - to do so sooner means poverty. Others retire as soon as possible and get another job that pays better and has less stress and "shorter" hours. Many simply leave the profession; attitudes like yours, if they become rampant and further affect (degrade) public educational policy will ensure there are few good teachers left in the profession. You'll get what you pay for.

Bingo. Arnie went to the state legislature and asked to reform the school system along with other government systems that were out of control as far as spending and union entitlements, getting rid of tenure for teachers who didn't perform and reducing the incredible amount of "entitlement" that was going to teachers and administrators etc. This was one of his campaign promises and surprisingly enough, he actually tried to follow through with it. The libs in Sacramento said no way, they didn't want to alienate the special interest groups. Arnie said if you don't go along with this I'll take it to the people and let them vote.
That's were the teacher's union stepped in and spend an incredible amount of money to protect their golden goose.
They spent every penny they had and borrowed money they didn't have to pay for gargantuan political campaign against the governor. Ads on the TV and radio every couple of minutes for months, donations to any spineless politician willing to take their side. How they still have a non-profit status is beyond me, the teacher's union is a political organization and should be treated as one.
Anyway, their huge ad campaign and brainwashing effort worked, the sheep agreed went along with them and Arnie lost.
He took his lumps and went on, and now he gets blamed for something that is beyond his control. It is amazing how short the attention span and memory is of people in this state (except tshore, he obviously paid attention. kudos).

The School bureaucracy is staggering...

Anyway welcome to reality Wicky...you just wake up from your nappy and have discovered what swo many have known for so long. Back in the early 90's I knew the school system was broken. CA ceased to be the best educational system in the world back in the late 70's.

What would be the best way for us in other states to get our state governments to model our system(s) after your liberal utopia? Seems to be working out smashingly!

Simple. Privatize.

Why would anyone want the Gubmint to run anything?
Get the Gubmint out of business, schools, etc.

You give them your money and they waste it.

On another note, I know its been discussed here before and there are 'exceptions' to the rule, but why would anyone want the Gubmint to educate their kids? No friggin way man! All 5 kids went to private school, period.

I can't speak for CA or US, but I've worked closely with the public school systems for years, I've built at least a dozen schools. I've built private schools too. The fact is any idiot could CUT at least half the overhead from the Gubmint system and not hinder the morbide education that they offer.

You want my vote; CUT baby CUT!

This is being done in Sacramento by a cat named Kevin Johnson, went back to his alma mater HS privatized it and has largely turned it around. He is a genuinely good guy and plenty sharp, running for mayor.

I remember him having plenty big ups for a little guy when they handed my alma mater their asses in our gym.
WTF Fint, read a little, he is paying twice for his kids, once to the state, and once to the private school they attend
give this man a cookie
I had it pretty sweet in Conroe, but family beckoned, and I missed Lake Tahoe and the wine country and peaches the size of grapefruit off the tree in the back. I have been eating a ton of home grown oranges last few weeks and planted some more tomatoes today, that will likely still be producing after Thanksgiving.

Gotta dig that mediterranean climate

Public schools in California are fuched three ways from Sunday. Glad my kids already graduated from their private schools, well, I guess the boy did go to State University, but it did not hurt him too much.

WTF Tobra, read a little, he is not even paying half. At the current almost $12k per student in CA, his taxes need to almost triple to cover his family...much less his contribution to illegals. His children are in private preschool and he moved to an area with better schools with the intent to send them to public school. His property taxes will not even cover the cost of even one of his kids...much less those of all the illegals or those that have less expensive property and more children...Anyone who wants more money to go to education and complains about property taxes either need to try to get their taxes raised, get schools to be more efficient, or send the folks that are not paying their way home.

Jim, I'm not whining when I point out that there are 190 school days a year in CA. Staff development days might add a few to that total, but it's still under 200 days a year.

BTW, in our district, the normal annual conferences with parents happen during regular school hours - in place of classroom instruction. That was at the insistance of the union, so that it did not add to the hours teachers work.

My point was really not that teachers are overpaid. I am saying that teachers unions (and other public employee unions) have been a huge impediment to any sort of real reform that might dramatically increase productivity in education. The people of CA support the unions at the ballot box, then throw a fit if there is any attempt to raise taxes to pay for it. They seem to think one and one make five...

+1

The answer to most of our problems is LESS government involvement, not more.

Good on ya', mate.

"All 5 kids went to private school, period."

I hoped they learned how to properly spell "morbide" (sic).