Why We Elected Jerry

Tremendous news for anyone like my family that has an unfortunate familiarity with California education (and that in the rest of the country too) from our Governor, Jerry Brown, whose interest in children apparently extends farther than creating more of them with the maid:

"California Governor Jerry Brown has taken a big step towards reducing the testing mania in the nation's most populous state. Up until his administration we have been on an accelerated path towards the comprehensive data-driven system that test publishers and corporate reformers have convinced leaders is needed to improve schools. But in the May Budget Outline from Brown's office, he makes it clear he is putting on the brakes.

The budget outline says:

"A number of problems have been identified with California's state testing, data collection and accountability regime. Testing takes huge amounts of time from classroom instruction. Data collection requirements are cumbersome and do not provide timely - and therefore usable - information back to schools. Teachers are forced to cub their own creativity and engagement with students as they focus on teaching to the test. State and federal administrators continue to centralize teaching authority far from the classroom.

The (Brown) Administration proposes to deal with these issues by carefully reforming testing and accountability requirements to achieve genuine accountability and maximum local autonomy. It will engage teachers, scholars, school administrators and parents to develop proposals to

(1) reduce the amount of time devoted to state testing in schools;

(2) eliminate data collections that do not provide useful information to school administrators, teachers and parents; and

(3) restore power to school administrators, teachers and parents."

This miserable testing regimen was forced on the country's public schools by the Bush Administration, and I can tell you that it was for one reason only, and that is the usual Republican one: taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich.  Repubicans know that poor parents can never afford to give their children the advantages that rich people can; and when their kids inevitably don't do as well on standardized tests, it provides a justification for taking money away from their "underperforming" schools, in order to subsidize the children of the rich.

And while we're on the subject of Jerry Brown (you knew this was coming) here's the other reason he's such a great governor:

I rest my case.