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?

Yes we have a budget... mostly

So after much deliberation the CA Senate approved the budget today in nearly identical form as the Assembly passed it weeks ago. What was the holdup?

Apparently Republican Senators were unhappy with the promise of the Governator to make some line-item veto cuts on his desk. According to the Sac Bee, they didn't trust their own party Governor to uphold his word to remove an additional $700 million from the budget. Yet suddenly, they have a newfound trust and believe the Governor will keep his word. The only other major gain the Republicans made by holding out was an amendment to protect infrastructure bonds from greenhouse gas emission lawsuits. That doesn't strike me as a major gain, nor one the Democrats would have refused in regular session.

Perhaps it's time to sit down and seriously reevaluate the CA budget process. Obviously, being 52 days late on a budget is not a good plan. If I were 52 days late paying my credit card, you can bet there'd be someone calling my house, my cell, my work and anywhere else they could find me. Why then are Californians so unconcerned with the ongoing budget problems?

Could someone explain to me why our legislators were out playing softball instead of wrapping up loose budget ends so that we could pay healthcare providers, childcare centers and others?