Arnold After a Year

[erpowers]

Arnold's first year in office is coming to a close. How do the people in California feel about the job he has done? Has he reduced any of the debt in California?

[Hawkeye-X]

1. I'm not in Kahli-for-nee

but I certainly can tell that Arnold INCREASED CA's debt from something like 6B to 12B.

Hawkeye-X

[proud patriot]

2. I still don't like him

x( I think it was a huge mistake to repeal the
new car tax .

[Kikosexy2]

5. Luckily...

I'm not one of those star-strucked moronic voters who agree with everything Gov. Groper proposes. Just speaking for myself, I give him a C- to a D average. Looks like it's gonna be a very looooonnnnnnngggg recovery for Calif. unless Dick Cheney and Enron pay Calif. back all the money they stole from Grandma Millie. Funny thing is Gropenfuerher can collect millions and millions for re-election fund-raising--but can't find a solution to fix the financial windfalls. Gee, you would think he can give some of that money raised back to Calif. LOL.

[SCDem]

3. My sister says she is a Dem but likes Ahnold

because he supports stem cell research. My thing (that I did not press her on and maybe should of) is what good is it to support a (R) candidate or govenator or whatever because they are pro-stem cell research when the party that they are supposedly supporting will no way in hell support stem cell research because they know it will alientate their right-wing fundie base.

Oh well I don't live in CA anymore. 1/2 of my family voted for him and 1/4 didn't and a 1/4 didn't vote at all (which I endlessly harass my mother the teacher about).

[NV Whino]

4. NO!

:mad: :grr: :nuke:

[mitchtv]

6. bucket of botox

sexual predator- Is it only 12b? I thought it was 17. We'll see if he vetoes the minimum wage raise to 7.75. Then we'll see how his adoring Burger king and walmart followers feel.

[Bill ORights]

8. Minimum wage

Can you believe that there's resistance to the $7.75 wage!? For someone lucky enough to get 40 hours a week, that's about $16,000 a year. And, of course, the Wal-Marts make sure no-one gets enough hours to earn benefits. How do people live in this state with such lousy wages$

Bill Orights

[AndyTiedye]

7. Time For Total Recall II

[LWolf]

9. From California Teachers:

1. :puke:

2. :shrug:

This is a recent posting from a CA teachers' discussion group I participate in; the bolding is mine:

SB 1448 (Alpert) has been signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger.

The bill passed the Legislature by overwhelming margins in late July.

SB 1448 reauthorizes the STAR program, which includes the California
Standards Tests (CSTs) for grades 2-11, and the norm-referenced tests
(NRT) for grades 3 and 7. This bill extends the STAR program for grades 3-11 until January 1, 2011, but only extends second grade testing to July 1, 2007.

The Assembly had passed AB 356 to eliminate state-mandated testing in second grade. The compromise was to establish the earlier sunset date of July 1, 2007. In signing SB 1448, Governor Schwarzenegger made his position on this issue clear. He supports continued STAR testing in grade 2.

In signing SB 1448 into law, the Governor released the following
"signing message":

"To the Members of the California State Senate:

"I am signing Senate Bill No. 1448, but still have some concerns
regarding the measure. It is unclear why the legislature chose to include a sunset of three years for the grade 2 testing, along
with the grade 3 and 7 norm referenced testing portions of the program, while the sunset for the other components of the STAR program were extended for six years.

"There is a compelling interest for students to be able to read by the
3rd grade, and ensuring that a testing mechanism is in place in grade 2 is critical in that process. If any sunset is included, it
seems reasonable to have all components of the STAR program sunset and
reviewed at the same January 2011 date. For this reason, I will look to sign a bill that rectifies this inconsistency, as well as cleans up several technical errors in this bill."

The gropenator becomes the testinator.

Of course, having students reading by the end of 3rd grade is a laudable goal; but we don't need standardized testing for that. I can assure anyone who is unclear; teachers know when their students aren't reading long before a standardized test score tells them so.

We were hopeful about dropping out the 2nd graders. The testing pressure is stressful to all of us, including the adults. We don't think the pressure is appropriate to begin with, and we especially don't think we need that kind of pressure on young children.

The 2nd grade test in CA is peculiar; I've given it several times. The math portion, in particular, is outrageous. There is a small section with some math problems for them to solve on scratch paper and then bubble in answers. The majority of the test is oral. Word/story problems, oral because just in case those 2nd graders aren't fluent readers, we don't want the scores to reflect reading rather than math. So instead, they reflect auditory processing rather than math. There is not a written copy of the problems in their test book; the teacher reads them aloud. One time only. The students are given "approximately" 10 seconds to answer before going on to the next problem. I can honestly say that after reading them aloud to the children, making sure I read clearly, I had to look back and reread silently to know what the problem was. Many of them are complex, multi-step problems that require children to filter out what info is necessary and what is not, and then do more than one thing to arrive at a solution. 7-year-olds, on one hearing, in ten seconds.

We'd really hoped to leave testing 2nd grade behind us. And the sooner we can leave the testinator behind, the better.