Comments by Ken Johnson
June 04, 2006
Kenneth King, I believe we agree on goals for CUSD. For the moment, I’ll just agree to disagree on the means. I know just how much commitment it takes to get out there and walk a precinct in support of a ballot measure. I can appreciate a desire to “do something” to improve our schools – CUSD is in great need of academic improvement. Please read “An Alternative Parcel Tax Measure” on CUSD.Info. http://cusd.info/ It is not intended as a final version. And it will evolve. It is intended…
June 04, 2006
"The May Revision to the budget delivers on Governor commitment to restore funding to schools.” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell on 12 May 2006 http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr06/yr06rel53.asp Joel Farbstein, You are arguing ancient history and the above points to today’s reality of school funding! The State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell is not exactly what you can call an opponent of school funding! He also is not a supporter of the Governor!…
June 02, 2006
Don Pettengill, Thanks, the EdSource document provides the general public a quick easy read on the topic. The public often hears the Teacher Union position without proper context. In the EdSource document, hopefully people will note: “National Education Association (NEA) wrote: “The Association opposes providing additional compensation to attract and/or retain education employees in hard-to-recruit positions.” “The single salary schedule, according to the AFT [American Federation of Teachers],…
June 01, 2006
To Seniors and those who advise them, posts here may have mislead seniors and deny them the Senior Exemption if Measure S passes. Measure S: Section 3. Senior Exemption from Special Tax. An exemption from payment of the special tax shall be granted on any parcel owned by one or more persons 65 years of age or over as of July 1 of any applicable tax year who occupies said parcel as a principal residence, upon annual application for exemption ("Senior Citizen Exemption"). The District shall annually…
June 01, 2006
Ray Olson, The chart is evidence that neither money nor ‘demographics’ explains CUSD poor academic performance. The question of relevant class size and its funding was already normalized between the two districts. As to where the money WILL go – that is conjecture. There is no effective accountability in Measure S! What “check box” are you referring to? Are you referring to Measure S? With all due respect, you appear to be confused concerning the issue. The “county assessor” has no…
May 27, 2006
Don, This chart demonstrates that money nor ‘demographics’ explain CUSD poor performance: in San Mateo County, with less money, equal or greater student population challenge and they clean CUSD’s clock on performance – up to double! http://cusd.info/page6.html Many parents are not concerned, saying that ‘my kids don’t fit into these categories’ – what they don’t get is that these numbers represent the ‘canary in the cage’ analysis!…
May 09, 2006
Brian, Glad to hear you shop on the coastside. May depend on who you spoke to at Strawflower Electronics. I stopped in there looking for a separate HDTV receiver for another monitor in another room that doesn’t have an internal HDTV receiver. There were two guys working there, which I didn’t know – I was the only one in the store that knew anything about HDTV. Radio Shack, at that time, offered a receiver with the specs that I wanted. I didn’t know at the time that they were no longer a Radio…
May 08, 2006
Brian, Glad to help. Casa del Mar / Imperial Bay has great signal strength. A great percentage of the coastal area should also be true. Don’t know who you have been talking to. Do they have any conflicting financial or political interests? The last time I surveyed was before HDTV general broadcast availability; but the coastal plain to just the sharp general elevation rise should be good. The area between in the south, HMB Magnolia, and the harbour north and east to past HMB downtown had general…
May 07, 2006
Hey, you’ve been ‘comcasted’! I am surprised that anyone would put up with this or after the slide bungle, their Internet non-service. DSL was up faster, [especially if directly using IP addresses rather than going through their DNS Servers]. I receive local stations OTA [Over The Air] with an antenna at roughly 50’ above sea level. The antennas that Comcast uses are in the hills. So anything I receive would definitely be available to them. From what has been said, there appears that little…
April 30, 2006
Finally! It has only taken a decade to get a shovel above the ground for the new intermediate school. I do wonder, if CUSD Board members Dwight Wilson and Jolanda Schreurs had not ‘learned’ in the survey last October that a Parcel Tax couldn’t win till the school site was changed, if this would have happened. I also wonder if the Parcel Tax wins in June, whether they will ‘discover’ some reason to change the site again. They did refuse to consider my written request to include a clause…
May 03, 2006
Terrific! A Win-Win-Win story. Nearly 30 years ago, when I planned my pool, solar heating was an integral part of the plan. Yes, a large backup gas heater, but the solar was planed as the primary. Even on the Coast, solar works! Solar paid for itself many times over. On the electricity side, it is equally beneficial, but be prepared for sticker shock. Shortages in raw material, demand from alternative material uses and inadequate production volume has resulted in higher unit costs. It is a long-term…
May 02, 2006
Steve, Good question. Yes; but I didn’t ‘drink the Kool-Aid’, so I would have questioned Mother Teresa had she made the same dubious claims as Cindy. I do feel you misunderstand my ‘tone’, thou. I give a source for any numbers and claims I may use which are not within the generally accepted realm and back them up at CUSD.Info. I would expect to be questioned on unsupported claims and I believe that any writer should expect the same. It is called intellectual honesty; not personal attack.…
April 25, 2006
Cindy, Where did you get your numbers? And just what part of SLIDE in “Devil’s SLIDE” did Dwight Wilson and Jolanda Schreurs miss. This only serves to remind us that CUSD has been wrong on every major issue that affects our schools, our kids and our community! “Bayless estimated that re-instating busing would likely cost between $200,000 to $300,000.” 8Mar2006 Review Cunha now has 15% fewer students than when bussing stopped at a cost of $300,000 a year. That works out to a parcel tax of…
March 23, 2006
Darin, Google "Flat Earth Society" – it is impossible to convince everyone! "Graduation Rate Crisis", "missing" and "disappeared" are words I used. It is a diploma on time that is a measure of success. You referenced a very nice article – irrelevant -- but nice. You seem to have missed the part about the data discussed is PRIOR to the CAHSEE being mandatory for graduation. In fact, you missed the part about the pattern existing before the CAHSEE was even offered! As to expectation of…
March 22, 2006
Kathryn, Thanks, seems it is only the Review and CUSD that disbelieve in the "Graduation Rate Crisis"! You can find more information on CALPADS (California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System), the system that allows for tracking a student's academic performance over time, at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sp/cl/index.asp CDE, California Department of Education, also officially released today (21Mar06) rankings for California schools. You can find the ranking of CUSD schools within San Mateo County…
March 19, 2006
Jonathan,
For a link to graduation rates expressed as Graduates as a % of Grade 12 Enrollment in county sorted including CUSD try http://cusd.info/coastsider/chart1.htm
Then click on school district name. You can work around a dozen years of state data then.
Ken Johnson
March 19, 2006
Darin, Sorry I "lost" you. Lets walk you out of the Labyrinth and anomalies of CUSD reporting. As described in the letter, about 2 years ago I presented to the CUSD Board multi year analysis showing the "disappeared". Enrolment, graduation, and dropout rates that showed a clear repeating pattern when looked at over their progression through the high school. I had been ‘alerted’ by a friend about a year earlier who was working more closely with Latino students that there was a problem…
March 07, 2006
This is a good news and bad news story. First, the bad news, the School Board gave-up the opportunity to assuage the public distrust of the Board. The proposal could have included language that excluded the possibility of withdrawing from receiving Federal funds or changing the new middle school site from Cunha back to Wavecrest. Should we pass a tax so that CUSD should be held unaccountable? Back on 12 September, the California Department of Education in a news release identified CUSD as one of…
March 07, 2006
Leonard, Please go to EFF.Org, Electronic Frontier Foundation, then check out DMCA, Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now look up "Fair Use Rights". Now call Bob More at 321 Studios – oops, sorry, you can’t do that because they were put out of business (Northern District Federal Court for California) by MPAA, Motion Picture Association of America, members on DMCA law suits. Now, please go back to EFF.Org and click on "Join EFF" and pull out your check book. You might also finding it interesting…
March 06, 2006
The agenda calls for "RECONVENE OPEN SESSION - 6:45 PM". Not the usual 7 PM Where are the people who complained about the previous City Council "rushing things through"? Of course, as I recall, they are the same people who contributed to the campaigns of the new City Council members and CCWD members and are the ones who contributed to CUSD members Schreurs, Wilson and Gardner. The survey last October indicated a severe lack of trust in the CUSD Board. I sent an email <http://www.cusd.info>…
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