Losing on all fronts
A few days ago, I saw an article about the horrible catch-22 the Oakland schools are caught in. There is a huge drop in test scores from the elementary schools to the middle schools in Oakland. So many of the top elementary students leave the district. Which results in a big drop in test scores from the elementary schools to the middle schools. And so on.
You can’t even say that people don’t care about the schools here. There was a school measure on the ballot this past November, Measure L, which would have raised $20 million/year for the district via a parcel tax. Nearly 66% of the Oakland voters voted yes on Measure L. 66%! In a town where unemployment is over 10%! I know most districts in Ohio would kill to get 66% of the voters to approve a levy! But alas, we are in California, and we need a 2/3′s supermajority to raise taxes of any sort. And we just missed it.
I don’t even have anything cheerful to balance that out. It’s just a long, slow slog.