To the Editor:
If I weren’t a San Francisco resident suffering from this bullshit, I would better enjoy the literary pugnacity of loco politics.
Chris Chow
San Francisco
To the Editor:
I fully support your cause of getting federal education dollars! Let’s make our voices and votes be heard.
Jadine Trujillo
San Francisco
To the Editor:
Just wondering what the ethnic/race and income breakdown is of parents across America and how the founders of this group define “authentic parent involvement.”
Kathy Emery
San Francisco
To the Editor:
First and foremost, money coming from the Federal Government rarely comes without strings attached, especially when it comes to education. The Department of Education has a vision, a mission and a goal. Agree or Disagree as you will, but if you take the money you take it on their terms.
Second, the money that comes from any source other then your regular funding sources should never be confused with money that is expended on a regular basis, e.g. salaries and ongoing annual expenses. You can thank the way Prop 13 was implemented for the lack of funding. Prop 13 was a good and required law that kept people on fixed incomes from being taxed out of their homes, sadly to get the thing through the legislature it was corrupted badly by big business interests.
You are correct, the economy sure has had a vast and overwhelming effect. Houses now changes hands at a snails pace and so the money that would be collected as properties are taxed at the rates that are reasonable according to their actual value is just not there and won’t be for quite some time.
Well what does the above translate to? It translates to tighten the belts, hold more fund raisers and start paying directly for the programs that you want back in the schools. Now some will say that leads to inequity because the parent base that the funds are raised from differs dramatically between the Marina and Hunters Point, but what can you do?
For starters, you can roll up your sleeves and go and do maintenance work at your child’s school and to hell with the district. Don’t like peeling paint? Go spend 3 dollars on a paint scraper and get busy. The thing is that you have to actually get involved at your child’s school, and not just writing letters and trying to effect the outcomes of elections. Quite frankly, when it comes to the point of the rubber meeting the road, I could care less who is on the school board, I will take action and go down to my kids school and fix / paint / repair / modify to makes things work for my child’s school and the teachers who work there because that is in my child’s best interest and ultimately my own.
By the way, the PTA at my child’s school pays for:Office Help, Music, Art, Librarians, and a bunch of other things that are two numerous to mention. So the bottom line is this. If you want something done, do it yourself. Don’t wait for the federal government, the state government or the local government.
Bill Sappington
Oakland, CA
To the Editor:
Re. “As Voters Focus on Economy, Obama To Give Prime-Time Speech…on Iraq,” (BeyondChron, August 31, 2010), my nephew just returned from his second tour of Iraq. President Obama is to be commended for “turning the page” on Iraq. However, we have not made Iraq “more secure.”
The U.S.’ invasion of Iraq was an attack on a sovereign nation. The claim that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” was fiction. The U.S.’ action and subsequent occupation decimated a country and its infrastructure, left its people less secure, resulted in thousands of American and millions of Iraqi casualties, and still bleeds American taxpayers heavily. The President’s view that increasing U.S. military force in Afghanistan will achieve peace is a mistaken and tragic one. The lessons of the “Vietnam Quagmire” have taught us that each nation and its people yearn to live in peace, not war. When will we learn the lessons of the Vietnam War?
Sincerely,
Anh Le
San Francisco
To the Editor:
Irvin Muchnick writes: “Still, I confess to some satisfaction in observing that the inconsistent, mentally fuzzy, frequently dispirited 2010 Cardinals seems to be playing at its very worst in the wake of last Saturday’s imbroglio.“
You mean in the 5 games since that event? So you can pinpoint the worst stretch of a miserable 162 game season to 5 games played this past weekend? That’s a bit of a stretch, wouldn’t you say? Didn’t the Cardinals just have a 5 game losing streak not 2 weeks ago?
I have a hard time believing the Cardinals’ woes from August 28-Sept 1 have as much to do with Pujols/LaRussa being at Glenn Beck’s rally as their woes from April 1-August 27 do. By the way, you sound like a religious bigot or in the very least intolerant of other people having the freedom to choose what faith they want to follow. Isn’t this the very thing the left cries foul about all the time when conservatives act the way you do?
John Chezy
Houston
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