Yes, you read that right. The Governator is going to be making a public appearance at a private school in South Orange County and to add insult to injury, thousands of parents of children in public school plan on protesting this appearance. Do you blame them?
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – Hundreds of parents, students and teachers from across South County are expected to surround a private school where the governor is rumored to be making an appearance Thursday to protest his proposed $4 billion cut to K-12 education.Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is widely believed to be making an unannounced stop at St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano for an afternoon pep rally.
St. Margaret’s spokeswoman Anne Mack referred all questions about the appearance to the governor’s office, which would not confirm his attendance.
“We respect the right of people to express their concerns through peaceful demonstration … and we want the very best for all students in Orange County and California,” Mack said in a prepared statement.
The OC Register fails to point out the irony regarding the planned visit to a private school while the Governor puts forth that the best way to deal with the budget shortfall is to cut public education. South County schools are expected to lose a total of 46 million in funding to Capistrano and Saddleback School Districts which educate 85,000 children. What would this private school need a “pep rally” for? Are they laying off teachers and scaling back on their educational standards because of the Governor’s badly managed fiscal plan? Probably not.
So why bother Arnold? Why do you need to be shoring up support with private schools when the bulk of your constituents have children in public schools? Maybe Arnold will be urging this and other schools to hire the laid off teachers since they will probably have a complete landslide of applicants for private education. Can’t have their classroom sizes affected, now can we?
As Robert in Monterey has pointed out, Arnold could easily reinstate the Vehicle License Fee which would cost the average two car household an extra $300 a year and raise over an estimated six billion in revenue and short circuit these cuts (although the pink slips have already been handed out and the students have already been affected by the threat of cuts). For most families with multiple children, three hundred a year is much cheaper than having to send your child to a private school. I personally believe that public education is one of those things that warrants such action, but then you would probably just call me a liberal.