Wednesday, January 30, 2008

And this my friends, is why we pay for private school

Natomas Unified has made some bad decisions under Dr. Farrar. We know about the land deals, the mediocre ratings on Great Schools, the below average spending per pupil (Current expense of education per ADA- $6304, state average $7,127) and the overall mismanagement and unhappiness of many parents in the district. The one thing they've done right is to let the charter schools do their own thing. In a mess of the district, the charters are doing well.

Dr. Farrar's response to the proposed governor's budget is perhaps the most appalling of mistakes. Per his letter, he has issued an immediate hiring and spending freeze as a precautionary measure. Interesting... especially since Natomas Unified still has jobs posted on edjoin.org listed as open and available. Is this a lie or an oversight?

While driving to the local library yesterday, I noticed that the Inderkum football field is all torn up and inquired inside. They are replacing it with artificial turf, that will apparently be state of the art. Yeah... we need a state of the art football field when you're already spending less per pupil than the rest of the state.

He even threatens to turn Kindergarten and 1st grade classes into 30 kids a piece next year, eliminate busing for students and even *gasp* potentially file for bankruptcy in 2009.

Now really, I know this is a fluff piece. It's designed to enrage parents in the assumption that they'll turn that around and push it on the governor. Right. The state problem is the same as the district problem... a simple mismanagement of funds. You can't spend what you don't have and you can always do more with less. I'm willing to bet, as a former teacher, everyone would forgo a football season to have a few permanent teachers in the classroom and a few less subs. Maybe leaving off the synthetic turf soccer field at the new Hight middle school would have bought a few more class sets of textbooks. I'm for sports and sports programs... but not when they sacrifice learning for athletics.

Perhaps that few million extra misspent for the land in North Natomas would be useful now?





7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This money for the football turf/track was in a grant or bond, specificly fot this purpose...All bonds must be used for what was voted on. The voters from Natomas voted on this.

SacramentoBlog said...

I realize that bonds must be used for what they were issued for. Voters however, don't get to pick and choose the project. It's all or nothing. I'm sure that many parents felt the rest of the bond was worthy. Or they didn't read it at all. Regardless, if we're going to pay for it, I'd like it to be beneficial. I guess they can now hold classes of 200 on the football field...

I can tell you for certain that I did not vote for it. I have not voted to approve a NUSD bond.

Anonymous said...

Sacramentoblog,
I understand that the field and track won't help a history class....but, look at the money it will save the district in the long run. Don't forget to look at the money the new field and track will bring to the school and NUSD. The new field and track will be in use 24/7/365.

Anonymous said...

Farrar's name is spelled wrong.

Anonymous said...

That's what drives you to post on this blog is a name spelled wrong? Can you spell apathetic?

Anonymous said...

Well, I could point out that someone ragging on the public system -- and touting the superiority of private school -- should make an effort to spell things correctly.

SacramentoBlog said...

I was actually going off a press release that was sent to me by the teacher's union. I will make the noted change.

However, since I actually work in said public system and do the best I can every day to improve it on my end, I think I'm fairly qualified to pass judgment.

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