Meanwhile, on the Other Coast…
After all the uproar, the union and district in Central Falls are holding hands, so maybe some attention can now be spared for the circus that is the California public school system.
* Students in the University of California call reduced state subsidies a “tax hike” on them. No, a tax hike is when you pay more for other people’s education.
* Local unions have organized teachers to hand out fliers to parents about education cuts. Parents, I assume, will not be handing out fliers to teachers about public employee pension funds.
* From this morning’s Los Angeles Times:
Three teachers at a South Los Angeles elementary school have been suspended for allegedly encouraging students to celebrate O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul during Black History Month, officials said Wednesday.
Children at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School were carrying pictures of the men at a parade Friday on the school playground, said Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry.
* And in San Francisco:
Students from kindergarten through college plan to convene at Market and Powell streets in the late afternoon to protest cuts to public education during a coordinated political action called the Rally for California’s Future.
Several schools were planning to have students create picket signs in school. Maria Lourdes Nocedal, a third-grade teacher at Sheridan Elementary School said Wednesday that students sat in the parent room at Sheridan making signs and banners.
…“A lot of teachers have adapted the budget crisis into their curriculum,” said Matthew Hardy, director of communications for United Educators San Francisco, the teachers’ union. “For math classes you can do the budget numbers. In history classes you can learn how people have stood up to these types of things before. It’s applicable for all different subject areas.”
In the past week, Hardy said that he and others activists distributed more than 3,000 signs to schools for kids to design for the rally.
I guess that means it’s OK for the kindergarteners to participate in a tea party rally, too.
