Aaahhhnuld's Draconian Budget Cuts Have Pissed off Californians

[marmar]

from HuffPost:




Peter Dreier
Terminator Budget Cuts Spur Protests Across Calif.
Posted May 15, 2008 | 07:00 PM (EST)


Like many students in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD), and across California, my daughters Amelia and Sarah, 11-year old twins, have been making posters opposing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's draconian budget cuts for public schools: "We Like Our Schools." "Arnold: Don't Terminate Our Teachers." "Cuts Hurt Kids." "Fund Schools, Not War." (That last one is really intended for George Bush, not Gov. Schwarzenegger.)

The signs will be displayed Friday afternoon at protests in front of every school in the 20,000-student PUSD system. Parents, students, teachers, office staff, administrators, school board members, and concerned residents will be out in force, waving banners and alerting passing motorists about the looming cuts that will devastate public schools in the state. The protests are a warm-up for a big march through Pasadena on Saturday, May 31. Similar activities have been happening across the state. More than 4,000 teachers, parents and students packed the stands of affluent Mission Viejo High School's outdoor stadium in Orange County. Hundreds of their counterparts in working class Alhambra held a rally at the school district headquarters. At San Jose's Overfelt High School, students handed out postcards urging the governor, "Please don't kidnap my dreams." The Angry Tired Teachers, a rock band from Hayward, are taking a statewide "Cuts Hurt" bus tour.

In many years of activism, I've rarely seen such an outpouring of genuine grassroots anger and mobilization. Many of the parents engaged in these protests have never been politically active before. Some are involved with their school's PTA or as boosters for their kids' sports teams, but many of the protesters have been recruited by word-of-mouth and by email through other networks -- churches, soccer leagues, and neighborhood groups. The protest planning meetings focus on nuts-and-bolts but are also full of spirit. The parents, teachers, students, and community allies -- who reflect the district's racial and income diversity -- got their juices flowing coming up with slogans and chants for the rallies and May 31 march. One parent suggested they steal an idea from protesters in Alameda, in northern California, who lined the city's main streets with trash cans, got students to stand in them, and held up signs: "My future is too valuable to throw away." (Readers who want to learn more about the PUSD protests should contact Tracy Mikuriya at [e-mail] )

Like many urban districts, the Pasadena school system has been traumatized by forces beyond its control. Middle class "white flight" from the public schools began in reaction to busing in the late 1960s. In the 1980s, immigration brought an influx of Latino students. In the past few years, gentrification and skyrocketing housing costs have pushed many low-income families, particularly Latinos and African Americans, out of the area, resulting in declining student enrollment, which damaged the district's budget and forced the closure of several schools. Even so, about two-thirds of PUSD's students are low-income, many of them from families where English is a second language. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/protests-against-the-term_b_102018.html

[liberalhistorian]

1. WTF did people expect

when they voted him in for the four-year term after seeing what a disaster he was in between the recall election and the 2006 election? WTF did they think would happen? His actions should be no surprise whatsoever to anyone really paying attention to him and the way he was. Too many of them have no one but themselves and their idiotic vote to blame.

Yes, I know the CA Dems didn't field a really good candidate or run a good campaign, and that was definitely their bad. But it still should have been easy to see that the Dem would have been better than Ahhhh-nuld, almost anyone would have been better.

[Tempest]

2. How was he a disaster between the recall and 2006?

He didn't perform to my liking, but he couldn't be considered a disaster by any means.

And Angelides was not only a horrible candidate, he ran a completely inept campaign.

[NV Whino]

3. We were also fighting the corrupt machines

Debra Bowen, our SOS is going to working valiantly to get rid of the effing things.