U.S. News - California governor calls for higher taxes, 4-day state workweek to fill $16 billion gap (Davis: sales, high income)

[CAVA1990]

Part of the problem is you have way too many low- or non-productive people and not enough taxpayers. Too many are sick, old, retired, imprisoned, or in school. You need to go back to spending mainly on roads and education and slash the rest to the bone.

[cb73]

A friend in my knitting group went to Netherlands for two years for her husband's job. Her kids were around 8 and 10. She thought she could just enroll them in school. The school told her she would need to enroll them in--and pay for--a language school where they would have to learn both Dutch and Frisian before they could attend elementary school. She said the kids went to the language school 8 hours a day for some months before they got good enough to enroll in school. So yes, it is possible to spend education money for just education.
Today on the news they were talking about the last national science test given to 8th graders across the country. California ranked 47th, with just 22% of the kids able to pass the test. Given all the money we pay into schools, that's sad.

1. End the "we will spend whatever it takes to teach English to everyone for free." Other countries don't do that.

Yeah, in rural Vietnam!

[felinius]

Originally Posted by cb73

Today on the news they were talking about the last national science test given to 8th graders across the country. California ranked 47th, with just 22% of the kids able to pass the test. Given all the money we pay into schools, that's sad.

California actually doesn't spend that much money per pupil. Interesting that CA is the 47th in the nation on spending per pupil, and we're 47th in the nation for science scores. We spend $7.5k per student while other places spent $9.9k.

You get what you pay for.

[LexusNexus]

Well, it's far better than any Republican solution. That's for damn sure. Bush and Arnold proved that.

Such steps must be taken in light of what Bush did nationally, and what unqualified Arnold did while pretending to be Governor. Not popular moves, but we're trying to recover from the stench that was Bush and Arnold.

[415_s2k]

Originally Posted by A_Lexus

Well, it's far better than any Republican solution. That's for damn sure. Bush and Arnold proved that.

Such steps must be taken in light of what Bush did nationally, and what unqualified Arnold did while pretending to be Governor. Not popular moves, but we're trying to recover from the stench that was Bush and Arnold.

I wonder how long it'll be before people realize that there's a recurring theme... get a pro-big business, anti-regulation Republican in; recession hits...

No one wants to have to make the decisions we're faced with now, but the fact of the matter is that we either take care of it now - which means that for awhile, taxes go up in some arenas, and services are cut in others (I opine it starts with bloated state pensions) - or, we kick the can down the road and wait for the even bigger monster that lies at the end.

The fact remains that, for most Californians who work in the private sector and have reasonably average, stable lives, even if the budget doesn't pass, life will go on in a largely unabated fashion. There will be no ragnarok; there will be no armageddon. And I, like many millions of others, will ride it out

[serialdriller]

eliminate illegal aliens... that will help the deficit..

[Bulldogdad]

Originally Posted by A_Lexus

Well, it's far better than any Republican solution. That's for damn sure. Bush and Arnold proved that.

Such steps must be taken in light of what Bush did nationally, and what unqualified Arnold did while pretending to be Governor. Not popular moves, but we're trying to recover from the stench that was Bush and Arnold.

BS, there are plenty of better options. Arnold actually tried a few and got shot down by the "girly men" otherwise known as *******s in the legislature or did you conveniently forget that incident. Go back and read about it.

I voted for McClintock BTW.

[MotleyCrew]

Originally Posted by A_Lexus

Well, it's far better than any Republican solution. That's for damn sure. Bush and Arnold proved that.

Such steps must be taken in light of what Bush did nationally, and what unqualified Arnold did while pretending to be Governor. Not popular moves, but we're trying to recover from the stench that was Bush and Arnold.

The most income we had was during the Bush years and I recall a very active and productive CA during that time as well. He did spend way too much money but he did try to do something about the impending crash of Freddie and Fannie but the Barny Franks and Dodds would not hear of it and said on the floor of the Senate that all was fine with the program. You do know that the democrats held the house and Senate the last two years of Bushies kingdom and it is hard to get anything done? Arnold was a waste of time and should have stayed in Hollywood with his moron friends. Brown was a disaster the first time he sat in the Gov mansion and he will be the same old blame everyone but himself for future pain and suffering. Why don't you stop taking care of third world neighbors and take care of California first? You liberals have held the reigns of CA's economy for decades now without having a real conservative in leadership. Look to your legislature for your answer and quit blaming everyone else for your declining state.

[Captain Obvious]

Originally Posted by 415_s2k

It is a cultural issue, and it's one that affects the system.

Japanese, Korean, and Chinese cultures are very much more collecivist and nationalistic than ours - all one has to do is pop into any discussion on this forum on the cost of education and read comments about how education should be privatized or scrapped altogether. It's a standard, go-to conservative talking point in the US: education is bad, it makes you stupid, it makes you a liberal.

In countries like Japan, the students are there to serve their society. In the US, the teachers are there to serve the students. Many parents really look at their kids' teachers as state-employed babysitters who, when they vocalize a concern or issue with a problematic kid, are shot down as being too harsh.

I do agree that situations in which teachers' unions keep crummy teachers on board, everyone loses. It's like the police unions that keep aggressive, loose cannons on the force when they should be canned. Although I identify as a liberal, I generally don't think that unions for public sectors are necessarily good for the public. I've been in a union before, and I hated it... but that's a different story.

To fix the education system, the first thing we need to do is stop electing people who don't believe that there's any evidence that the earth is older than 12,000 to positions of influence in the US. These are the morons who lead the charge against education. Then, we need to stop electing people who seek to dismantle it becuase they only know how to run a business, and not a government - they are, or at least should be, two different things. After we've done this, it will still take time to fix it because you basically have two generations of Americans who grew up in a culture where education was under assault and for-profit colleges spewed out far more people with degrees than our current, post-Reagan/post-jobs-getting-shipped-to-China economy needs. At the same time that union pensions are a ball and chain to the public sector, you're basically looking going through the same process to get the degree that supposedly will allow you to flourish in the private sector.

Once upon a time, people actually worked together in America. Now, it's like we're a big mud wrestling match. You can thank greed for that!

The one part that you are leaving out of the Asian systems is that they are very strict meritocracies. The children that go to universities are the very best students. In the U.S. we essentially have universities and colleges for everyone almost in spite of their lack of abilities.

In all of the countries that surpass the U.S. in terms of Math and Science there are two track systems in which a sizable proportion of students don't even compete in the traditional academic system. This is essentially the same dichotomy between private and public schools in that the private (and in a lot of cases the charter schools) get to cherry pick the students that they want.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

Part of the problem is you have way too many low- or non-productive people and not enough taxpayers. Too many are sick, old, retired, imprisoned, or in school. You need to go back to spending mainly on roads and education and slash the rest to the bone.

This may come as a shock to you but most of us old and/or retired persons actually continue to pay taxes. At the very least, CA taxes all pensions regardless of their source.