Golden One said:

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We should encourage more widespread use of vouchers to create competition for the overly bureaucratic public school systems.

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What do you think… is a flat tax a good idea, too?

bearister said:

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"I await everyone's snarky remarks."

I think only fans of Cormac McCarthy's writing style are going to comment.

"A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools."
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

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A star to the first person who can identify the verb in this sentence.
The sentence in Bearister's post, not mine. Or try that, too. But no star will be awarded.

Golden One said:

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California politicians have believed that the solution to the state's declining test scores is just to throw more money at the problem,

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Can you prove, or back up, this assertion?
Well, first of all, can you identify "the problem" you refer to?

Golden One said:

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Obviously, that hasn't worked.

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Can you back up this claim?

Golden One said:

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School curriculum in K through 12 needs to place more emphasis on the basics--Math, English, Science, writing skills, etc. and less time spent on social engineering.

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What is this social engineering you speak of?
And isn't education itself, like "the basics--Math, English, Science, writing skills, etc.", a form of social engineering??

BearlySane88 said:

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SBGold said:

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PAC-10-BEAR said:

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Katie Miller: “What’s a conspiracy theory that you believe in?”

Liz Wright, wife of Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “…The teachers unions want to keep the students stupid so they can control them and turn them into Democrats.” pic.twitter.com/x84c6saOFz

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 21, 2026

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Definitely a wacko conspiracy theory. They made her dumb yet she turned out to be a Repub.

VOTE BLUE AND VOTE GAVIN

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You'd think it was a lot less wacko if you worked in schools. There are several teachers I work with who openly spout hate filled rhetoric towards conservatives, some even violent. Every school I've worked at has had similar. I have never seen it happen the other way around. The only teachers, that I know of, who put their own feelings and beliefs onto the students are liberals.

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When it happens the other way around you recognize it as plain common sense.

wifeisafurd said:

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Why is enrollment dropping so dramatically at CA public schools?

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Uh, I think the answer to your initial question is PRETTY FLOCKING SIMPLE!

1. Fewer children per woman is something happening in California, in the United States, in north, central, and south America, in Europe, in Africa, in Asia. I have made many posts and several threads about this phenomenon.

2. Fewer immigrants.

Did you know that there are two ways to increase population (irrespective of lifespan)? Childbirth and Immigration.
That's it.


There's so much more I could say, but I think I'll just let these simple facts sit with people. Y'all can argue about it while I'm gone today. I'll return to see more stupid things people say.

SBGold said:

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Teachers are among the smartest people in the world…

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I don't think they are too smart if when they leave work they go smoke a "spliff" to get high and escape the stressors of their day. Like, maybe if that's what they need to do they should just get a different job.

I hear posting on chat boards is not very stressful - and there may be some way to get paid for it.
Oh!! I hear there's a slush fund available for propagandists. Maybe people can get in on that. And not have to smoke weed to de-stress.


How smart is someone that stays in a job that causes them so much stress - from kids mind you, the most resilient, adaptable and inspiring age group of all - that they need to use mood altering substances to cope?

People:

Please have a discussion about DEPOPULATION.

What are the impacts on GDP?

What are the impacts on Infrastructure, such as road construction, sewer line repairs, and schools?

Are we able to staff hospitals?
Are there enough electricians?
Will we have a tax base to support all the projects that require ongoing funding, let alone social security?



I find it a bit pathetic that an initial question got turned into a left-right debate - culture wars. because they answer was a whole lot easier.

Family across the street from me in concord had 8 kids.
They have one grandson, and he is severely autistic. I think the youngest of these 8 is nearly 30!

I'm next.
My 5 daughters are 17-26, no grandkids yet.
My brother's 5 are 17-25, no kids yet.

BiNGO

Teachers, like most of us have free will and will do the right things for their industry

Muckieeye said:

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Ah, test scores! The sacred cow of anti public education conservatism.

Psst: all standardized testing reveals is how good a student is at taking standardized tests. This is not a complete measure of a student's success. It is merely one part of the overall student assessment process.

Students with learning disabilities, as well as immigrant and first generation students, are at a disadvantage when taking these tests.

So, simply pointing at test scores dismissively, as if that proves your point, reveals your ill informed bias.

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A recent report from UC San Diego revealed a sharp decline in math and writing skills for incoming students:

-1 in 8 incoming freshman can't do basic math
-1 in 5 fail the entry-level writing test

Meanwhile, San Diego Unified high schools require students to take ethnic studies courses.

PAC-10-BEAR said:

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Muckieeye said:

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Ah, test scores! The sacred cow of anti public education conservatism.

Psst: all standardized testing reveals is how good a student is at taking standardized tests. This is not a complete measure of a student's success. It is merely one part of the overall student assessment process.

Students with learning disabilities, as well as immigrant and first generation students, are at a disadvantage when taking these tests.

So, simply pointing at test scores dismissively, as if that proves your point, reveals your ill informed bias.

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A recent report from UC San Diego revealed a sharp decline in math and writing skills for incoming students:

-1 in 8 incoming freshman can't do basic math
-1 in 5 fail the entry-level writing test

Meanwhile, San Diego Unified high schools require students to take ethnic studies courses.

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Those are the basic facts that some simple-minded folks on this board just don't want to acknowledge.

concordtom said:

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Golden One said:

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We should encourage more widespread use of vouchers to create competition for the overly bureaucratic public school systems.

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What do you think… is a flat tax a good idea, too?

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Definitely. Gives everyone skin in the game and if properly implemented forces the super rich to pay their share. But it will never happen. The lower 50% and the upper 1% don't like the idea.

Big C said:

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it is pretty much documented that student learning in the US began to decline several years before the pandemic... right about when kids started all having smart phones and access to social media.

Regarding teacher unions, their primary role is to advocate for increased pay and working conditions for their members (teachers). That's what unions do. The problem is when their views about how to improve education in general become mingled into that. Teachers are an important voice on how to improve education, but that should be separated from their unions' attempts to garner higher salaries and a better workplace.

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I hear you but the allowance of what happens (the result) must lump them together....I don't see how teachers fight the will of their unions thought.....Much like taking from the rich in the current political scope...How do you do it?

Golden One said:

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concordtom said:

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Golden One said:

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We should encourage more widespread use of vouchers to create competition for the overly bureaucratic public school systems.

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What do you think… is a flat tax a good idea, too?

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Definitely. Gives everyone skin in the game and if properly implemented forces the super rich to pay their share. But it will never happen. The lower 50% and the upper 1% don't like the idea.

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What's your opinion of a progressive tax system. Why does it exist (in theory, if there weren't special loopholes)?

Regarding test scores, I have a hunch and then I'll tie it into my overarching theory for why we have Trump - who did you know is a racist idiot?

Quote:

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What percentage of California k-12 students are children of immigrants and how does that rank historically ?

In California today, roughly 44%46% of children have at least one immigrant parent, according to recent demographic estimates. Because most children attend public schools, that translates to roughly about 45% of K-12 students being children of immigrants as well.

Historically, that is very high by California standards, but probably not the absolute peak.

A few important historical points:

* California has had repeated immigration waves:
* Chinese, Irish, Italian, Japanese, and other European immigration in the late 1800s/early 1900s.
* Large Dust Bowl migration in the 1930s (domestic migrants, not immigrants).
* Massive Latin American and Asian immigration after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.
* Demographers generally describe the current era as one of the highest sustained shares of children from immigrant families in California history. The modern difference is that immigrant-origin children are now spread across essentially the entire statewide school system, not concentrated in a few cities or industries.
* The foreign-born share of California's total population is currently about 28%, which is among the highest ever recorded for the state and the highest of any U.S. state today.

So the short answer is:

* Current percentage: about 45% of California K-12 students are children of immigrants.
* Historical ranking: likely near the highest level in state history, though California also had extremely immigrant-heavy periods around the early 20th century.

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1.
When I was in college in DC, we have ServiceMaster employees doing the cleaning on campus. Many were refugees from El Salvador who had obtained asylum. I volunteered to teach them English and discovered that my student were illiterate.

2.
I took an electronics class at a Sac JC because my background is international economics. I ended up tutoring a kid from Stockton who didn't know the difference between 10%, 1/10, and 0.1 - I was shocked and sad. The teacher said a ton of kids are like that. I share people's dismay, but his parents were also immigrants.

So, if you have lots poorly educated folks in your classrooms, it's gonna be hard to boost test scores.

Now then, I posted here or elsewhere about domestic fertility rates - we, like everywhere else, are having fewer children. This is an economic negative. Young workers drive the economy! But if you are not producing your own young workers, you've either got to import them (immigration) or suffer economically.

And if you import them, test scores are going to suffer.


The reason we have Trump is because a huge swath of the country is used to whites as the dominant person in USA and see the changes happening. Whites will soon be less than 50% of the population. Obama as a black man being president showed people the future, and many are uncomfortable with that. They want to go back to how it was: Make American White Again.

But, the world trans-mobility is different. There more more ships and planes and cars than ever before. The global population is on the move. The future won't be like the past, and the pace of change is quickening.

Change promotes fear.
Fear promotes conservatism.
It's scientifically proven. Liberalism, a willingness for change, happens when people are open and trusting. Or damn pissed off and fighting for it.


Anyways, all these themes are tied together.
You can't have economic growth if you don't F and produce kids.
You can't have high test scores if you have uneducated immigrants' kids in your classrooms.
You can't stay white if you import workers.

You can't have it both ways.
Charlie Kirk understood these basic facts. That's why he and the fundamentalist Christian faction is promoting that a woman's job is to stay home a be a reproduction factory.

They want to shut out outsiders by building a wall. And they want to F.
Make America Great Again.



Except the (ideally) women are sexier than Norman Rockwell's grandma. Here is the TWA Petty girl - aka, MY grandma, who was the brunette version of this picture. Did you know in the early days of commercial air travel you had to be an RN?



Yeah, grandma was a TWA Petty Girl hottie. And she produced a Cal Bear Big Game Hottie - well, Alzheimer's Ma wasn't The Big Game Queen, she was a runner up. But there she is with Oski on the field with the packed stands in the background in the queen's court.

Go Bears!

This guy is accepting the inevitable changes that are coming - because he studied the right degree that has him seeing the ways of the world.

Here's the thing,
Life is always evolving.
It's silly to get wrapped up in little Us vs Them faction wars.

To me, the challenge is to find ways for better outcomes for US. We.

My latest curiosity involves going back to those college archeology and geology classes combined with new skeletal finds and modern DNA analysis to understand our movements out of Africa.

That process of global expansion continues.



And did you know, that…



Homo sapiens mated with Neanderthal.
Neanderthals mated with Denisovans
Sapiens mated with Denisovans.

We are the resultant offspring (unless you are subsaharan African).

Add Mixture.

So, this little micro issue of Unions and Liberals and Test Scores…. It's all so tiny and meaningless in the long run.

Yes, test scores matter.
But the infighting we do is stupid.