Budget Crisis Threatens California' Schools

from montereyherald.com article name same as my title.

begin quote: "These cuts will bring us a third world educational system." end quote.

Since California's economic woes have been never ending since Enron and other energy companies stole billions in overpriced electricity money from the state that subsidized energy users so they wouldn't go bankrupt paying their energy bills. Ever since then no one has ever figured out a way to pay back those outlandish billions. Governor Davis went down in midterm to Arnold and here we are today with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and tax revenues sliding to zero from foreclosures and the value of the remaining properties declining because of the foreclosures. Even though I live in an affluent area, our homes have devalued about 14% here. However, in the rest of the county homes have devalued by 50% or more. This causes property taxes to go into a freefall as well when you add to that all the homeowners in this county alone who have just given up and walked away, just like nationwide.

The end result is that there is NO money for the state's schools.

My premise is that if you have children in California, only you can see to your children's education now. You can no longer count on public schools to do their job. They can't educate your children under these conditions. If you want your children to have a future, then you must as parents and guardians see to their education or you will watch your children's lives fall apart. Which is easier to watch your children's lives fall into some kind of hell or to educate yourselves and move forward as a responsible parent or guardian of your child?

I found myself in this kind of position in 1980 when because of budget problems once again here in California, the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders were moved up to the middle school to compensate for a bumper crop of kindergarten to 3rd graders at the grade school. Within two weeks an 8th grader broke a 4th graders jaw. We as upset parents simply withdrew all our children(kindergarten, 3rd grade and 4th grade from public school and put all three of our children on independent study(home school) with Oak Meadow School. I just went online and it is still in existence. This independent study course was very reasonable and we became our children's teachers. Since at the time we were moving to 10 miles from the nearest small town in the Mt. Shasta Area this worked quite well for our family because there was no school bus service to where we lived anyway at 4000 feet on the side of Mt. Shasta.

We home schooled through independent study curriculums through Oak Meadow School until our oldest son(then age 12) wanted to go back to school. So we decided to move to the Northern California Coast and Buy a business there. Our children attended the last grade of grade school through junior High and one through High School there.

Now my three younger children are 35 to 38 years old, one is a fire captain for CDF, one is a lawyer in Oregon and one is in the last year of nursing school in Southern California. So all of them are doing fine as adults professionally.

Home schooling makes independent thinkers who make their own decisions and follow their own ideas and makes very creative interesting people as adults.

Another alternative if you don't have the time to spend teaching your children is to try a Charter School, one of the many throughout the state of California. Also, many public school systems support independent study with resource teachers, libraries and online courses. So there is a multiplicity of programs available for you to consider to create a good future for your children.

The single most important thing one must do for a good future for one's children is to foster a love of learning that continues to grow throughout their lives. Of all the things one must foster in a successful child is the love of learning. There is no single thing more important than this one in regard to a successful happy child throughout life.