Too many dumb laws are passed. How many new state laws have passed since 2000? Thousands. Members of the Assembly and Senate proposed hundreds of new laws during 2014, and Gov. Brown acted on almost 1,100, signing 930 bills into law, and vetoing 143. Last year’s legislative output included these three laws: (a) banning the display or sale of the Confederate ...
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NAMM’s Big Trade Show in Anaheim
NAMM’s principal trade show will be annually held in Anaheim. NAMM or the National Association of Music Merchants is the trade association of the music industry. NAMM’s activities and programs promote music making for people of all ages. NAMM’s collaboration with schools supports the goal that all children have access to musical instruments, and idea supported by NAMM, whose members welcome a new market of 19,000 local children and ...
Read More »JOHN DEWEY WOULD DE-TEST COMMON CORE STANDARDS AND DETEST TODAY’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Published this week were the first set of test results from the new California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP). These tests assess students’ performance in California’s public schools. Because they are markedly more difficult than previously administered school tests, low scores were expected. School critics were not disappointed. Students attending some schools in the Anaheim City School District recorded very low ...
Read More »Romero’s Charter School Rant: Fabricated and Flawed
Gloria Romero, a self-designated school reformer, presented a pseudo argument in the Orange County Register for establishing charter schools. A real argument expresses a point of view about a subject—and supports it with evidence. To state a point of view without evidence is an opinion. In this case Romero presented a pseudo argument, an assertion sans evidence, often flawed and fabricated. “Out ...
Read More »Snell’s Charter Schools: Vested Interests, Huge Profit$—and Real Failure
Liberace found gold in them there trills. Charter schools are now finding gold in them there hills of online (aka distance) education. California Virtual Academies (CVAs) operates 11 charter schools in California. To find out why, keep reading. Last week in the Orange County Register, Lisa Snell proclaimed, albeit falsely, that charter schools are more effective than traditional public schools: “California’s ...
Read More »The Register’s Object Lesson in Bias and Propaganda
Summer colds often reoccur and linger for many weeks—but they do not persist nearly as long as the seemingly endless and often erroneous content in Orange County Register editorials regarding Palm Lane Elementary School. Last Sunday (August 2), the paper reserved almost an entire page for two editorials to bemoan the appeal by the Anaheim City School District and its ...
Read More »Euphemisms: Creating a Language of Lifeless Words and Phrases
George Carlin, a master wordsmith, often scoffed at the language he called “American English.” A favorite and frequent target was euphemisms: limp or indirect words substituted for words that blunt the hard edge of truth. “American English is loaded with euphemisms,” Carlin complained. “Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Because they have trouble facing the truth, they invent a ...
Read More »Judge Triggers Takeover of Palm Lane School
The Decision: The Palm Lane ordeal will soon end. This week, Judge Andrew Banks ordered the Anaheim City School District and its school board to reverse a previous decision, accept the petition initiated by Palm Lane parents, and begin the process to establish a charter school. (Read the entire decision here.) Judge Banks labeled the school district’s decision to reject ...
Read More »Opting Out of Common Core in California: Coming Soon to a Nearby School
The new Common Core Standards tests in public education are a “game changer” says U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Yet the number of students nationwide opting out of Common Core tests is increasing significantly. The New York Times reported that in New York state, “At least 165,000 children, or 1 of every 6 eligible students, sat out at least ...
Read More »Purported School Failure Is Ubiquitous Throughout California
Former state senator Gloria Romero and her supporters labeled Palm Lane Elementary School a chronically failing school, filing a petition last April for a writ of mandate in the Orange County Superior Court. The petitioners, five Palm Lane parents and the Center for Parent Empowerment (established by Romero), seek to obtain an order from the judge to require the Board ...
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