How I'm voting

[drscott]

I usually do a post on how I intend to vote. This election would have occurred for us in any case because we have several local races, so I don't mind having propositions as well. The propaganda level of the advertising for these has been very high, with outright lies or garden-variety distortions more evident than usual.

I've read the voter information guide and newspaper stories about each proposition. With the exception of Prop 74, the teacher tenure changes, I agree with the Mercury News editorial page on all of them.

Prop 73: Parental notification. Superficially plausible (it's good for parents to know when their child needs an abortion!) but actually a stalking horse for the antiabortion types. Weasel-wording sets up precedent to define a fetus as a legal human being. Makes it likely children will seek black-market abortions. NO

Prop 74: Teacher tenure. Extends from 2 to 5 years period when public school teachers can be dismissed without complex procedural safeguards. Makes it slightly easier to dismiss a tenured teacher for cause. The Merc says no, but despite misgivings I've heard too may stories about bad teachers being impossible to fire. Tenure in a research university allows freedom of thought; tenure at the grade school level only makes the world safe for mediocrity or worse. Fails to address more serious public school problems (lack of accountability due to statewide funding schemes, lack of competition, political interference with curricula), but YES.

Prop 75: Requires public employee unions to get permission for political expenditures. Being fought by, among other things, an extra $60 assessment on all public school teachers, in an example of the abuse intended to be addressed. There is a special problem when public employees (and companies that supply state services) can interfere with the machinery of democracy by funding political campaigns to support candidates that will in turn feather their nests; the Governor says he will support a provision controlling campaign expenditures by corporations if this one passes, so with that proviso, YES.

Prop 76: Budget reform. Allows the executive to exert more authority over budget items when deficits get out of control; adds a rainy day fund for excess revenues during good times (as were spent instead during the boom years, leading to the current fiscal crisis.) The system is terribly broken now, and this is a bandaid that will help. A little. YES.

Prop 77: Establishes redistricting commission to end legislative gerrymandering. A good-government reform, long overdue, that will start to add competition to legislative races. YES.

Prop 78: Drug plan #2, financed by drug companies. This was put on the ballot to avert Prop 79, and sounds good while doing little and costing, perhaps, a lot. NO.

Prop 79: Drug plan that purports to provide discounted drugs to the poor at the drug companies' expense. If it works at all, it will have unintended negative consequences; and the drug price problem needs to be addressed on a nationwide basis. NO.

Prop 80: Wrongheaded utility re-regulation proposal that would entrench old-line utilities as the only providers of power. Would leave little incentive for investment in new power transmission lines or innovative plants. NO.

Comments

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

My only comment is to the Prop concerning teacher tenure. Obviously, this doesn't apply in Texas because most teachers do not belong to a union. However, extending the period where a teacher could be terminated without just cause from 2-5 years, leaves some outstanding teachers, who don't do school "politics" well, vulnerable to corrupt or inept administrators. Get on the wrong side of your principal, regardless of your performance in the classroom. and you could be out on your ass. Five years is a long time to go without assurance that you have a job even if your work is exemplary. Just my unsolicited two cents:)

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

I'm unclear on why the average graduate of a state teaching college deserves more job security than anyone in the private sector after only two years of focused effort. If public schools are to be managed, the principal needs some leverage; there are bad apples in management everywhere, and the rest of us deal with it.

But this is the one where there are really good arguments on both sides. I'd like to see more voucher programs that let kids go to any good school they want, but that won't be allowed to happen while the teacher's unions dominate the legislature.

[orange-groves.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it has already been proven that private schools don't necessarily warrant a better education than public. Republicans push for this for the religious schools.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

The world has more than two poles.

[orange-groves.livejournal.com]

Yup.

But having seen it all while living in Southern California, my experience is that the voucher push is for private unaccredited schools. For children of fundamentalist parents that don't want to expose their children to things like, say, Homosexuals.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

So because of this strawman argument you've foreclosed all possibility of freeing poor inner-city kids from costly schools that resemble prisons.

[orange-groves.livejournal.com]

The voucher system wasn't designed for inner-city youth.

I can't disagree on the state of public schools. I've been very frustrated with all the idiocy especially in San Francisco. School Bond money gets wasted. Bills don't get paid promptly.

But vouchers aren't the answer, just as School Bonds aren't either. The system needs to be overhauled. No one wants to take the task on. And unfortunately teachers, being only human too, can't survive on low wages where they can't afford to live.

My aunt is a teacher, as is a good friend of mine. Both are hard working, and have repeatedly paid out of their own pocket for extras for their kids that the school district can't afford. I think you would find that more teachers are like that than the bad ones.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that the average teacher is a good, hardworking soul that does their best for the kids. Which is beside the point -- the problem is systemic. CA spends a lot on schools (though not as much as some states like NY), and gets very poor results. Education is not a natural monopoly except perhaps in rural regions where it is impractical to have multiple schools. The problem is very poor management, and that in turn is the result of a poor incentive structure. Good schools happen when people on the scene have the power to make changes and spend their budgets as they see fit; our political/labor controlled public schools do not allow that.

And you apparently have no idea that the strongest supporters of voucher systems that have been proposed and put in place are inner-city parents.

[orange-groves.livejournal.com]

Nope, I hadn't heard that about the IC parents being supporters.

California really doesn't spend much on public schools anymore, and Governor Arnold took millions of dollars from the schools without repaying them back. California has gone from a leader in education to in the bottom 10, in part because of budget cuts from Proposition 13.

I don't agree with the idea of the labor controlled schools. But I do advocate that many governmental positions dealing with schools are needless and could be eliminated. Part of that comes from other unions, or even the programs themselves.

On the other hand, without Prop 13, only the wealthy could afford to own property!

[bigredpaul.livejournal.com]

It's not necessary for teachers or other public employees to join the unions when they are employed, so they already have an out for Proposition 75. I say let the union members decide if their union is not being governed as they would like, and leave the government out of it. This proposition is just another example of Republican union busting, and a bad idea.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

It took a lawsuit to grant teachers the right not to join the union, and in practice those who choose not to do so are harrassed.

See http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cta28sep28,1,6477594.story?coll=la-headlines-california

In The Worm in the Apple, an expose of teacher unions, former Forbes editor Peter Brimelow quotes an attorney who says that teacher termination hearings in California are "as detailed, as voluminous and painstaking as the O.J. trial." Take the case of Juliet Ellery, a San Diego-area high school teacher.

Ms. Ellery refused to answer student questions, demeaned and insulted students, and refused to adhere to lesson plans. Frustrated students circulated a petition to have her dismissed. The district then spent eight years and $300,000 trying to fire Ellery. Although her teaching credential was eventually suspended for one year, Ellery returned to teaching after the suspension. Unsurprisingly, few districts try to fire bad teachers.

According to the state Office of Administrative Hearings, in the Los Angeles Unified School District from 1990 to 1999, only 13 dismissal panels were convened and just one tenured teacher’s case went through the dismissal process from beginning to end. In order to overhaul this dysfunctional system, Governor Schwarzenegger wants "teacher employment to be tied to performance, not to just showing up" and "teacher pay to be tied to merit, not tenure." Other influential bodies agree.

The Teaching Commission, chaired by former IBM head Louis Gerstner, recently recommended that teacher pay be based on performance as measured by frequent individual teacher evaluations that include assessments of student achievement and other teacher skills. The Commission recommended a value-added assessment system that looks at annual improvements in student performance as measured by state tests.

[orange-groves.livejournal.com]

But, in the same article:

In the Legislature and at the polls, the union has pressed for more education spending and smaller classes, and kept private-school vouchers at bay...

(wink)

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

More spending and smaller classes do not ipso facto do a better job. In college, class size varies all over the map because some education is best done one-to-many, and other topics require great individual attention.

[orange-groves.livejournal.com]

I'm voting against all of them. Bad teachers can certainly be fired, and it sets up some homophobic types to fire teachers at will before they reach the five year mark.

As a public employee for almost 17 years off and on, I really believe that Prop 75 is a waste and debacle.

Likewise as a graduate of public schools, I believe that Prop 74 is bad. I believe that the schools need to be improved, yes, but teachers will be few and far between in public school here in California should it pass.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

As a public employee, your view may be less than objective. As a taxpayer, my view is certainly colored by my interests.

[orange-groves.livejournal.com]

That is probably true on both accounts.

I don't belong to the union, although I have to give a fee to them anyway. But they can't just put money out there without getting permission. And any employee can opt out of the fee to the union as well.

As a taxpayer, perhaps you could ask yourself why the governor wants to give himself special extra powers, or why the governor's special interests from Florida or Texas can give money to support special elections in California (and yes, that's a fact) and "horrible" unions cannot.

[furfairy.livejournal.com]

Get out of my head! I had been planning to vote the same way on all except for the budget reform one.

Prop 77 and the Magic Independent Commission

[ozdachs.livejournal.com]

My mother got me to vote no on Prop 77. Even if she's been dead for 15 years.

Mother taught me that redistricting is inherently a political process. To try to dress it up with "independent", "bi-partisan", "only out for the People" methodology is noble but is not going to happen.

Moreover, if we take the reapportionment out of the spotlight and put it in the back room, our very best intentions are going to lead us to a very dark, very bad place.

The every-10-year agonizing over drawing districts isn't pretty. Some times there are too few competitive districts drawn up. But, like our democratic system in general, I think it beats the alternatives.

Re: Prop 77 and the Magic Independent Commission

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

The way it's proposed to be done is not perfect, and I'm sure that the random 1-2 splits will result in some political considerations seeping in, but since whatever the commission decides is then subject to a vote of the people, it's a big improvement over the Legislature doing it. The best is the enemy of the good, on other words.

But reasonable people may disagree.