I am a public school teacher. I do not think it is fair to only tax the super wealthy for this. Additionally, the number of new students it would bring to preschool is minimal compared to those already attending. I'm sure that the 40% who voted in favor have very good reasons for doing so, but I did not see the greater good.

The greater problem is that with well over 99% of precincts reporting, only 27.8% of registered voters cast ballots. This does not take into account how many are eligible to vote, but never registered. For all of the people wanting to take democracy to the Middle East through a violent struggle, this is a pretty poor way to show how much we Americans appreciate democracy.

A large factor in the defeat of Prop 82 was likely the low voter turnout. Low turnout elections favor conservative voters, who are less likely to vote for any tax and spend initiative. I doubt that the majority of voters are informed enough to even begin to understand the complex issues that impact our public education system. Prop 82 was simply a lousy solution that deserved to be defeated. But I agree with Tim, the fact that 40% of the public still voted for it shows how uninformed many people are on the issues. This idea was so bad it should have earned only single-digit support. Given that most people seem to get their information from T.V. commercials, the winner in modern political races is usually determined by who can wage the most expensive P.R. campaign. From that standpoint we are lucky that there was enough of a coordinated effort against this proposition to insure its defeat. Although the result was the correct one I give very little credit to the average voter. The ones we should thank are the clever T.V. ad executives.

But rest assured that the supporters of these bad ideas will keep repackaging the same garbage for the next election. That much you can count on.

I'm not sure that you can consider Prop 82 "a lousy solution" when some 40% of the voters supported it. That's a pretty fair percentage of the turnout. Now, support dowm below 20% might indicate that it was not well thought out or received. But 40%, that's another story. Were the voters uninformed? I think not. They voted to get something for nothing.

I consider Prop 82 a lousy solution because it was simply a bad law. First of all, it would have relied on a volatile tax source. If the economy slows then the taxable income of wealthy individuals tends to fall much more than the general population, which in turn dries up your source of revenue. If you want to fund ongoing programs it should be tied to a stable and broad revenue source, not a volatile tax on 1% of the population.

The second reason this was a lousy solution is that it would have cost $2.4 billion annually and would have only increased preschool enrollment by 8%. It would have cost $8,000 per year for each student to provide just three hours of preschool. Not very cost effective. Providing subsidies or tax breaks to low-income families would be more effective in increasing preschool enrollment if that was the real goal.

The third reason this was a lousy solution is that it would have been a windfall to higher income households that already pay for private preschool but can now instead send their kids to a program provided by taxpayers. On the other end, low-income illegal immigrants would have also been beneficiaries of the program. And the last thing we need in this state is yet another taxpayer-subsidized entitlement program for people in this country illegally.

The fourth reason this was a lousy solution is that it would have expanded the already ineffective education bureaucracy. Thousands of private preschools would have been driven out of business only to be replaced by an inefficient government monopoly.

My opinion on this law is the same regardless of how many people voted for or against it. The fact that this Proposition was so seriously flawed yet still received 40% of the vote is downright disturbing. It reminds me of the time when some college students went out and gathered signatures from hundreds of people for an initiative to outlaw di-hydrogen oxide (H2O). They cited statistic showing how many people died each year because of H2O. It just goes to show that, if packaged right, some people will vote for just about anything.

Where's Arleigh? Didn't the Kid predict landslide wins for both propositions?

82 failed because it's a ridiculous idea, not because there was low turnout.

Happy,

Arleigh predicted that Prop 82 would win by 6 percentage points (53% to 47%). I do not recall him mentioning Prop 81. He did mention that O'Connell would win with 70%. O'Connell got 52.1%, which is still a considerable lead over Knopp (17.3%) or Lenning (14.2%).

So, I guess that all is well with public education in the state of California. O’Connell was re-elected by a significant margin. Maybe not the 70% as predicted by Arleigh, but to take over half the votes in a 5-person race speaks volumes. It appears that O’Connell won in every county!

So, for those of you who have kids in the public school system, it’s clear that little will change in the next 4 years. Certainly, no big changes at the state level, and probably none at the local level – unless Sandland can achieve her goal of providing Chinese language instruction classes. Too bad the Board isn’t more interested in the kind of quality instruction that will get more kids qualified for a high-level college education. Although the topic was raised as an issue at the April meeting, it was totally ignored at the May meeting.

O'Connell did get 66% in Ventura County. In terms of Prop 82 the people spoke. But I think Prop 81 going down, even though it had widespread support, shows that people are tired of initiatives and want more work done in Sacramento and less at the ballot box.

47.9% of the voters wanted SOMEONE else besides Jack O'Connell. That's the message they sent Sacramento. Nearly half of the voters showed their disapproval of trends in our public education by opposing O'Connell. That is very significant.

Whatever lets you sleep at night Cathy.

Cathy, did you hear that over Diane Lenning's Ham Radio?

The first thing a person learns in a statistics class is that anyone can lie with statistics. I will show Cathy exactly how that is done:

Although the State Superintendent is a non-partisan position, three of the candidates are Democrats, one a Green party, and Mrs. Lenning is a Republican. Since she got third place and 14.3% of the votes, it means that 85.7% of the population does not trust a Republican to do the job! This is very significant.

Another? 85.7% does not trust Diane Lenning to run public education!

Another? According to CNN.com, Bush got 51% of the votes across the nation in 2004. This means that a higher percentage of people trust O'Connell in public office than our president!

See, I can manipulate statistics too! It doesn't mean that either of us is correct, but I can bend numbers to make it look like I have all sorts of evidence.

Carlson's friend Lenning was beaten by the Green party candidate Knopp by 17% to 14%. The Conservative republican only got 14% of the vote, that is what Cathy calls a victory? 86% did not want her like Allen said. Republicans in Ca are about 36% and only 14% supported a fellow republican. All polls show Californians don't trust republicans with education. Cathy's buddy Strickland is also pushing all Charter Schools, even the kind that Tim blogged against recently. Of course the Star reported Strickland really pushed Vista Real Charter after they paid him $20,000 and gave him another $7,000 for his campaign, and all this while he was still in office.

In today's politics, people also vote with their wallets.

O'Connell raised a ton of money and didn't even need to touch it for this campaign. Lenning on the other hand, raised about $4,000. $4k!!! That's basically a rounding error!

That means that most party operatives, PACS and others either didn't care about this race, or didn't think she was qualified. Either way, she got ZERO backing from the party, and only from a circle of friends and family, and some others.

That's not a campaign, that's a lark.

Tim

Alan, sorry I spelled your name Allen.
Tim,
Why do you think the Green Party candidate got so many votes? 17% and came in 2nd? The most votes a Green Party candidate has ever received in California.

Diane Lenning WAS endorsed by the CRA at the spring convention. The stats show that nearly half the voters didn't want O'Connell. It is extremely difficult to unseat an incumbent, especially a Democrat who has the backing of the teachers' unions. It is shocking that the Socialist got so many votes. Must have been teachers in LA voting for her.

O'Connell will be termed out after this. Diane got her feet wet in this campaign. She will have a running start for 2010. This will give plenty of time to inform the voters of the reforms needed in public education. The pendulum will swing the other way in Twenty-Ten.

Cathy, You are the Ann Coulter of Thousand Oaks. Thanks for trying to connect teachers to socialists. It is about time we stop treating them respect and start calling them names.

I am sure Lemming will double her vote total next time to something like 25 percent.

The CRA has an awesome effect on education candidates. Their endorsement of doom is about as effective as a tobacco company giving free smokes to a cancer patient. The victim was already dying, but they helped finish the job.

One can only wonder about a candidate like Knopp who makes it a central components of her campaign to "stop the testing and accountability craze" and to "no military recruiting on campus". That is an insult to the millions of parents who are fighting for higher standards and accountability and a slap in the face to the men and women in our armed forces who so bravely serve our country. Oh yeah, she insulted crime victims by being part of the "Save Tookie Committee" and she also happens to be a card carrying member of the International Socialist Organization. Naturally she favors "taxing the rich" to increase education spending. She also happens to be a LAUSD teacher and union leader.

With a resume like that it is little wonder why so many people have concluded that many of our so-called "educators" are socialists. That is not to say that there aren't many hard-working, dedicated teachers. Unfortunately people like Knopp aren't all that hard to find in our public school systems.

And yet Bubba, the people decided that they would much rather have Knopp than the Rupublican Lenning. It must be pretty pathetic to be lower than all of the things you just mentioned.

Alan, you of all people know that these elections are more of a propaganda war than anything else. It is not surprising that a candidate with a $4,000 budget who is heavily opposed by the status quo education establishment was not going to get very many votes. I'm not sure what you think that proves other than there are a lot of uninformed voters out there. People would vote for a brick if it had enough endorsements and campaign funding. But you know that as well as I do so lets not waste time with these simplistic arguments.

Lenning really didn't run a campaign. The last report I saw had her raising about $4K which is less than you'd need to be elected to the cemetary district board.

CRA endorsements aren't worth the IHOP napkins they are written on... Endorsements without cash support are nothing more than "attaboys"...

Lenning was trying to run a statewide campaign on less cash than most people spend on lattes in a year. No signs, No radio, No Mailings... equals no votes.

If someone doesn't know that going in, can we trust her to run a $60 billion budget? The party didn't even support her, and I don't recall the governor endorsing her. Most republicans voting in this non-partisan race didn't see a little (R) by her name folks.

On her web site, she has one endorsement from an elected official, and her last blog entry on her web site is from FEBRUARY!

Need I say more?

We've spent more time debating why Lenning lost, than she did campaigning.

Now - how do we fix our schools?

Tim

To Bubba,

I do know the elections are a propaganda war. The reason I keep going back to the subject is because you and Cathy cannot seem to let Lenning's defeat rest. Cathy keeps trying to use statistics to make a point, so I used the exact same numbers to show different points. People keep trying to make excuses that she only had $4000 and no real endorsements. Well if she was serious about getting the position she should have gotten the money and the endorsements. If she was not willing to do that for her own campaign, how am I to believe that she will go the extra mile for my students? If she did try to raise money and get endorsements and this was all she got, why were so many organizations (especially Republican ones) unwilling to give her an endorsement? And if her last blog was February, how badly did she really want the position? I don't know the answers but I have a feeling that her self-nominated spokespeople on this blog will answer them. To be blunt, Knopp and Lenning lost, and O'Connell won. There will be a new person in 2010.

To Tim,

You want to know how we fix the schools. That is a broad question. What do you think is broken?

Lenning lost because she was part of a long line of wackos operating Ham Radios and talking about socialists in our schools.

If Arnold is so into education why didn't he help Lemming out? He could of doubled her budget by driving a smaller car for a week and using the gas savings as a donation.

She didn't get support beyond the fringe because she wasn't a mainstream candidate. She got the Cathy Carlsons, Mike Dones ( as of his next election he will be done!), and The CRA support.

Voters don't want open partisan, agenda seeking party wackos. They want people like Jack who have been a teacher and have commonsense ideas ( For example supporting the exit exam).

If the Lemmings of the world had their way their first thing up would be vouchers. I wonder of private schools that accept vouchers would be giving state created tests like the exit exam?

I'd like to see some fundamentalist school exit exam have questions about science. Or as they call it "witchcraft".

So, back to the point. Do you think Arnold voted for Lemming? His fake tans cost more than all the hits combined to her website.

Alan -

Actually I couldn't care less about Lenning and haven't said a word about her campaign. Go back and read every post I have ever made in this blog and you'll find that I haven't even typed the word "Lenning" until this very post. You are the one trying to drag me into this debate when you say "you and Cathy cannot seem to let Lenning's defeat rest". That is only in your imagination. The only candidate I commented on was Knopp. If you want to debate the merits of Lennings campaign then take it up with Cathy Carlson. Personally I don't see the point of rehashing this stuff anyway.

Tim -

Asking us to discuss how to fix education is too general of a question. There are so many issues that it is impossible to address them all right here. We should just pick a couple of specific issues and then create a new thread to discuss in more detail. School funding is one of my favorites. That should get all the local socialists all riled up.

Hey Tim, here is a great idea for a topic. How about we debate whether our public education system is dominated by socialists. Given some of the recent posts that seems to be a timely subject that should get some feathers ruffled. It would also be good fun to watch it play out.

You are right Bubba. You said, "It is not surprising that a candidate with a $4,000 budget who is heavily opposed by the status quo education establishment was not going to get very many votes." Since it was previously stated that Lenning got $4000 in campaign contributions, I assumed that you were talking about her. True you did not use her name, I assumed that you were talking about her and that you were trying to make excuses for why she did not garner more votes.

Whatever... this Lenning thing is a dead end. Next topic please.

I agree. I want to know what Tim thinks is broken in education.

Here's what the LA Times said Friday in an analysis of the race for State Supt of Schools, calling O'Connell a near-victim. Interesting remarks from this reporter on O'Connell's poor showing which just barely missed forcing a run-off in November.
********************************************

Candidate's 2nd Place Finish Elates Green Party
By Mitchell Landsberg
Times Staff Writer

June 9, 2006

As state superintendent of public instruction, Jack O'Connell had the power of incumbency in his reelection bid — that, and an untapped, $1-million campaign fund, which was about $1 million more than all four of his little-known challengers could muster collectively.

O'Connell is an amiable and well-liked figure, and had been in the news recently for accomplishing one of his major goals in office: requiring students to pass an exit exam to graduate from high school.

So why, with all that going for him, did O'Connell come within 2 percentage points in Tuesday's primary of getting thrown into a fall runoff? And how is it that his top challenger was a Los Angeles public schoolteacher and Green Party activist whose campaign biography identifies her as a member of the International Socialist Organization?

Not only did Sarah Knopp come close to forcing O'Connell into a statewide fall runoff, but she got more votes than any Green Party member has ever gotten in a California election — in fact, party officials said, more than any Green has ever gotten in any statewide race in the country.

Note the careful wording: Knopp was not a Green Party candidate, any more than O'Connell, a Democrat, was his party's candidate, because the superintendent's post is officially nonpartisan. Still, Green Party officials were exulting over her strong showing — she received 569,000 votes, or 17% of the total — and talking about her as a big part of the party's future.

"It was a surprise," said party spokesman Crescenzo Vellucci. Green Party leaders knew Knopp was a good candidate, he said, but had no idea she would attract far more support than the party's previous top vote-getter, Laura Wells, who got 420,000 votes — 5.8% — in a 2002 race for state controller.

Diane Lenning of Huntington Beach, a more conservative rival to O'Connell, finished third in Tuesday's primary with 14% of the vote.

O'Connell, a former state senator from San Luis Obispo who has been a champion of standardized testing and stiffer graduation requirements, may have been the near-victim of voter disenchantment with the state of public education in California. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found voters in a foul mood about education, with nearly two-thirds saying the quality of public schools is a major problem for the state.

And he undoubtedly paid a price for his fierce defense of the high school exit exam, a battle he ultimately won in court last month after opponents said the test unfairly penalized English language learners and students in low-performing schools.

Knopp was in the best position among the four challengers to take advantage of any discontent over the test. Her ballot statement and website stressed her opposition to standardized testing, saying it threatened to turn public schools into "teach-to-the-test drill camps" that "suck the joy out of education."

Knopp, who was endorsed by author Jonathan Kozol and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), did especially well in counties with a strong liberal bent and sizable Green Party constituency. She got just under 25% of the vote in Humboldt County, which Vellucci said is the strongest Green county in the state. The San Pedro resident also got nearly 20% of the vote in Los Angeles County.

Knopp said she thought she did well in part because, in a nonpartisan race, there was no stigma to being a Green Party candidate.

Still, she said, she also benefited from party support. She is also active in the immigrant rights movement and said she believed she received some support as a result of that.

Given the challenges, O'Connell's press secretary insisted, the incumbent did well.

"We were really pleased," said Rick Miller. "A lot of people were not optimistic that we were going to get over 50%. The reality is, it's a down-ticket ballot that a lot of people don't pay attention to until the last minute." Asked why O'Connell didn't tap his campaign fund, Miller said campaign officials preferred to save the money for a runoff race, if one was required.

Bill Carrick, a veteran Democratic political consultant who ran O'Connell's 2002 election campaign, said he was surprised that the superintendent won outright on Tuesday.

He noted that O'Connell's predecessor, Delaine Eastin, wound up in a runoff with a lesser-known candidate, teacher Gloria Matta Tuchman, during her reelection bid in 1998. Eastin won the November runoff.

The fact that Knopp did well in relatively liberal counties, and Lenning — the only registered Republican in the race — did well in relatively conservative counties suggests that voters paid close attention to ballot statements and the few news accounts about the relatively unheralded race, Carrick added.

"It is an interesting phenomenon," he said. "It may, in fact, be an encouraging, positive comment on the electorate."

Doesn't really matter since all of O'Connell's challengers were nothing more than bug splatter on the windshield. Even if it came to a runoff he would have easily defeated any challenger. The power of incumbancy is even greater than the power of cheese.

The real problem is that people complain about the state of our public education system but then refuse to get involved and pay almost no attention to critical elections that impact our schools. Half the money in this state goes into public education and you would think that people would care enough to become informed voters. Instead they blow the whole thing off and sit around watching American Idol. Pass the Cheetos.

Well...it seems like there is some needless mud-slinging going on here. If you care to do some research about the real facts, please refer to my website: http://www.DianeLenning.com You will find that much of the rhetoric here in regards to my campaign was inaccurate. I find it disheartening that people I do not even know, or may have met recently in campaigning, would discuss publicly an innocent person and belittle a candidate who has invested hours of genuine hard work and accomplished much in a campaign for the benefit of our children and grandchildren. As I encourage all voters, please take more time to get to know each candidate who runs for office, and please show respect for others in our society who take running for office seriously, and take great effort in running for office. Unfortunately, there is not time or space here to educate everyone on the intricate workings of running for state office. Unfortunately, the discussion here shows some of you know little of how it works. It shows teachers must work harder to educate our students in the workings of democracy and government in California. As a teacher for over thirty years who has dedicated my whole life to children, I believe I deserve more respect than I have been given in this column.

Mrs. Lenning,

When running for public office, your life becomes public record. Your actions are scrutinized and your decisions are questioned. If people like Cathy are going to try and make excuses for you, I am going to play the other side. If you are uncomfortable with people talking about how only 14.3% of the voters wanted you for office, maybe you are not the best person for the job. It takes thick skin to do something as important as leading our public education system.

Diane,

You've written more in this blog than you did on your own. I think what we've said, is we think it requires both a plan of action, and capital to run a statewide campaign.

That may offend you, but if it does, I'd like to invite you to tell us what your plan was, and why you raised so little?

I've visited the web site, and I just don't see it. Sorry.