I visited a school about a week ago, because I had business with the school administrators.
The place looked, and felt, like a jail.
Based on what I saw, I'd be comfortable cutting the budget of the LAUSD to $0. My contacts weren't bad people, but it's clear from even brief conversations that the fish rots from the head, and there is no saving it.
Incidentally, the far superior Santa Monica/Malibu and Las Virgienes (Calabasas) school districts are so much better than LAUSD (even in a very affluent area) that it's not even funny. Both school districts spend LESS per pupil than the LAUSD.
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Amerigo, what would you do at this point? The bond is essentially an attempt to legalize what Gray Davis already did, not new money for Arnold's budget. If he doesn't pass it, we have to chop government way more than anyone in the legislature's going to tolerate.
I don't particularly like it, but I think the massive tax increase that's the main alternative would be even worse.
Amerigo, what would you do at this point?Six things for sure almost immediately.
1)Use the bloody pulpit to pressure the feds into inforcing existing immigration law.
2)Use the bloody pulpit and the initative process to reform redistricting in California.
3)Use the bloody pulpit and the initiative process to repeal Prop 98.
4)Introduce another initiative, using the Prop 187 experience as a guide line, that substantially denies the public saftey net (education, health services and the legal system) to illegal aliens
5)Make an immediate, across the board, reduction in all public spending, including education, through the veto process, until the crisis has passed.
6)Return to the pre 1963 methods of funding and guiding public education. Return both the administration of and the tax revenues to support public education to the counties and local school boards. In other words, deny the Los Angeles School District access to the state general fund.