Fight Back! Stop those Parent Volunteers
Education cuts in California have been deep, and more cuts are likely in the near future as districts go over the fiscal cliff when federal stimulus funds and Edujob funds run out. So it is not surprising that districts are eliminating positions that they would like to maintain like librarian assistants, playground monitoring, and other cuts away from the classroom. One Northern California district near where I grew up is fortunate enough to have a group of parent volunteers to pick up some of the slack. Most schools would be jealous of such support. But, in this case the classified employee union is fighting hard to get those parents off campus (here). According to Loretta Kruusmagi, president of the local classified employees union.
“They are not going to have volunteers there at all. I can’t cite the exact thing, but there are state
Democratic (Little ‘d’) Education and Opinion Polls
With Election Day just around the corner, a lot of people are starting to take closer looks at public opinion polls—casual newspaper readers, journalists, policy wonks, and, especially those vying to be the next representative of District X. Two major problems (out of many) with polls that try to gauge the public’s attitudes and feelings toward contemporary policy issues are: (1) There are rarely options to select answers like ‘I don’t know enough to answer this question’ or ‘I don’t really have a strong preference here.’ (2) The questions asked of the public are generally vague, mostly abstract, and often unhelpful
