Title: Proposal
Date: 9/30/12
Topic: Proposition 30
Exigence: Our country is in a serious economic crisis and an education has become increasingly more difficult to obtain for so many because of the incredibly low budget schools are forced to run on, along with the budget cuts every school is being forced to cut out faculty, students, and programs making it almost unattainable for so many in a state where anything should be attainable.
Audience: Teachers, Students, Voters, Parents, Non-voters, undecided voters, and uninformed voters
Purpose: Make it apparent to everyone in California that our public education system is in serious trouble and show him or her how and why Prop. 30 must be passed in order to ensure a bright future for everyone.
Claim: If Prop. 30 doesn’t pass, Cabrillo will face an additional cut of 7.3 %, losing space for 780 full time students, cutting one in thirteen classes, and eliminating five average sized programs or majors…THE CONSEQUENSES ARE DEVASTATING.
Strategy 1: Logical reasoning I will use include facts: 250$ million cut to CSU is prevented if Prop. 30 passes, avoids class cuts, layoffs, and enrollment cuts. $5.6 billion in funding is freed up for higher education, health care, or any other services.
If Prop 30 doesn’t pass, K-12 schools get cut $5.5 billion, which will cut three weeks of school. CSU’s get cut $250 million, resulting in cuts, layoffs, and staff and enrollment cuts. CSU students could face an additional $150 tuition increase for classes this spring. If Prop. 30 doesn’t pass, Cabrillo will face an additional cut of 7.3 %, losing space for 780 full time students, cutting one in thirteen classes, and eliminating five average sized programs or majors. Noting that since 07-08, Cabrillo has already had to cut 400 classes, classes in nearly every discipline, course offerings have decreased by 10% since fall 11’, and tutoring staff, services, and hours were all reduced.
Reader’s Effect: Reader will see statistically what is happening to our education system and realize what this crisis has been doing and what it will continue to do to education in California whether it is grade school, community college, or California State University.
Strategy 2: My second strategy in order to show my credibility, I will explain that I am enrolled at Cabrillo College and have been a student here for three years. I have seen first hand how these budget cuts have affected me personally and my educational experience at school. Class options are being cut, fewer options for a variety of teachers for different subjects, price of tuition continues to skyrocket, and the ridiculous class sizes we are seeing at the beginning of every semester.
Reader’s Effect: After reading and understanding from a first hand experience what these budget cuts are doing the reader will understand that in order for education to be how it is supposed to be and what it actually is right now one will be put in the position to see what the two sides are to Prop. 30 and better understand what needs to happen in order for education to come back to California schools.
Strategy 3: My third strategy will be to use emotion by explaining my education experience and how I plan to continue on going to college while transferring to a CSU and get an education. Having been at Cabrillo for three years, the tuition continually increases every semester I have enrolled, while it feels like I paying for opportunities to be taken away. Schedules and classes are being cut and dropped, teachers, custodians, substitutes, and tutors are losing jobs, and classes have become so large that it is uncommon for classes to have more desks than students inside of them. I plan on transferring to a CSU and by reveling these facts, statistics, and sharing my own experience apart of the education system and all of the benefits the state of California should see from Prop. 30 if passed should show how much California can gain from this and how much debt we can erase from this budget crisis and really begin to reevaluate education and begin educating the right way in such a wonderful place.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Annotated Bibliographies
Annotated Bibliographies
Reynolds, Mark. Op-Ed“Proposition 30 Won’t Fix California Budget Issues.”IVN, 10 Sept. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2012
In this Op-Ed article by Mark Reynolds, he begins by addressing California’s budget deficit and its effect on the ballot this November. He goes on by stating that California has the second lowest credit rating in the union due to the high rate of debt also noting that the state currently faces nearly a $16 billion budget gap this next fiscal year. Much of that deficit would be temporarily erased with the passage of Prop. 30. Reynolds then explains that if voters reject Proposition 30, which would increase annual taxes on annual income over $250,000 for seven years and increases the statewide sales and use tax by one quarter of a percent for four years, public schools, colleges and universities will also face $6 billion in cuts. Noting that since the budget crisis began in 08, general funding in California has been cut from $103 billion down to $92 billion for the upcoming year. Funding for education has been on the decline since 08 as well. California is ranked 47th in the country in per-pupil spending on education which is lower than the 43rd rank we had last year, and during the 07-08 when California was ranked 23rd. Reynolds suggests that rather than filling the budget box with votes for Prop. 30, the state needs a fundamental shift in the way it does business. Instead of continuing to rely on the direct democracy, he suggests California needs drastic reforms to its system to enable the legislature, without the shackles of term limits, to plan and execute long term, balanced budgets.
Blumenstyk G. If Prop 30 Fails, What Then?. Chronicle Of Higher Education [serial online]. August 17, 2012;58(44):31. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed September 23, 2012.
In this Op-Ed article by Goldie Blumenstyk, he/she feels that Prop. 30 must be passed if we do not want the budget crisis to get even worse and continue for the schools to be cut more and more money. Noting that if Prop. 30 fails, the state will automatically cut $ 338 million from community colleges, $375 million from the University of California system, and $250 million from the California State University system. Public schools would be hit with even bigger cuts. With the opinion of Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Association, says the state could be collecting a lot more in revenues if it would broaden its tax base, close loopholes on corporate taxes, and exact a severance tax on its offshore oil. While the ideas are controversial he says, “a complex state, with complex needs, shouldn’t flinch from its challenges. We are the only state with our own dream. There’s no New Jersey dream.” When talking to Mr. Block, a representative of a San Diego district says that many of his constituents don’t want any more cuts, and they don’t want to pay more taxes. Lawmakers want colleges to find ways to operate more economically.
Reynolds, Mark. Op-Ed“Proposition 30 Won’t Fix California Budget Issues.”IVN, 10 Sept. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2012
In this Op-Ed article by Mark Reynolds, he begins by addressing California’s budget deficit and its effect on the ballot this November. He goes on by stating that California has the second lowest credit rating in the union due to the high rate of debt also noting that the state currently faces nearly a $16 billion budget gap this next fiscal year. Much of that deficit would be temporarily erased with the passage of Prop. 30. Reynolds then explains that if voters reject Proposition 30, which would increase annual taxes on annual income over $250,000 for seven years and increases the statewide sales and use tax by one quarter of a percent for four years, public schools, colleges and universities will also face $6 billion in cuts. Noting that since the budget crisis began in 08, general funding in California has been cut from $103 billion down to $92 billion for the upcoming year. Funding for education has been on the decline since 08 as well. California is ranked 47th in the country in per-pupil spending on education which is lower than the 43rd rank we had last year, and during the 07-08 when California was ranked 23rd. Reynolds suggests that rather than filling the budget box with votes for Prop. 30, the state needs a fundamental shift in the way it does business. Instead of continuing to rely on the direct democracy, he suggests California needs drastic reforms to its system to enable the legislature, without the shackles of term limits, to plan and execute long term, balanced budgets.
Blumenstyk G. If Prop 30 Fails, What Then?. Chronicle Of Higher Education [serial online]. August 17, 2012;58(44):31. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed September 23, 2012.
In this Op-Ed article by Goldie Blumenstyk, he/she feels that Prop. 30 must be passed if we do not want the budget crisis to get even worse and continue for the schools to be cut more and more money. Noting that if Prop. 30 fails, the state will automatically cut $ 338 million from community colleges, $375 million from the University of California system, and $250 million from the California State University system. Public schools would be hit with even bigger cuts. With the opinion of Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Association, says the state could be collecting a lot more in revenues if it would broaden its tax base, close loopholes on corporate taxes, and exact a severance tax on its offshore oil. While the ideas are controversial he says, “a complex state, with complex needs, shouldn’t flinch from its challenges. We are the only state with our own dream. There’s no New Jersey dream.” When talking to Mr. Block, a representative of a San Diego district says that many of his constituents don’t want any more cuts, and they don’t want to pay more taxes. Lawmakers want colleges to find ways to operate more economically.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Reader's Response #1
John Taylor Gatto a teacher for over thirty years wrote the article, Against School, which appeared in Harper’s magazine in 2003. He questions public education and whether or not it is what our children should be going through in order to become educated and ready for the real world. He has first hand seen education and its faults for over thirty years, taught in many schools and has found reason to think of schools- with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers-as virtual factories of childishness (149). He explains that in this country we have been taught (schooled) to think of “success” as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, “schooling, ” but historically that isn’t true in either an intellectual or a financial sense (150). This article mainly written for Americans, teachers, parents, and students is meant to open eyes and begin questioning our school system as a whole if we haven’t already began to wonder what our children are learning and what they are doing while at school all day. From Ellwood Cubberleys’ 1922 edition of Public School Administration Cubberley writes:
“ Our schools are…factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned… And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down (154). Gatto explains that maturity has been stripped from every aspect of our lives, easy answers have removed the need to ask questions.
According to Gatto there are six unstated purposes or functions of public schooling, (1)the adjustive or adaptive function explains how schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority, precluding critical judgment completely. (2) The integrating function or “conformity function” is to make children alike as much as possible. (3) Diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student’s proper social role by documenting evidence on cumulative records. (4) The differentiating function explains that once the student’s social role has been determined, children are to be sorted by role and only receive training as far as their destination in the social machine merits, and no further. (5) The selective function refers to Darwin’s theory as what he called “favored races”. The idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock, schools are meant to tag the unfit- with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments- enough so that peers will accept them as inferior and bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. (6) The propaedeutic function says a small fraction of kids will be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged.
From my own experience as having been a student at a public school and also a charter school in high school I think I have a bit more knowledge and experience having been apart of two completely different schools. At Aptos High I felt like these six unstated purposes of public schooling were what the school was trying to impose of the students and it was so hard to branch out actually challenge ones self or any of the things we were being “taught”. With such large classes and over-crowding and students unable to sit in class there were groups of students always uninformed and usually off doing their own thing while the class was split apart, the working students and the goofing off students. When at the end of the day both groups graduated with the same diploma when all was said and done. When I had had enough I decided that Cypress Charter School would be a better fit for me. The school was a very small campus behind an elementary school consisting of four portable buildings and an office. The classes were much smaller and consisted of students of all age. There were no “freshman” or “seniors” we were all unified and worked together to help one another enjoy school and better each other’s education by offering help and getting help whenever help was needed. If it wasn’t for my change in schooling I don’t think I would have the same view I have today nor would I think education is such a big deal even now in college because of my horrible expericence with such a large public school and all the faults and difficulties I saw and experienced every day.
“ Our schools are…factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned… And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down (154). Gatto explains that maturity has been stripped from every aspect of our lives, easy answers have removed the need to ask questions.
According to Gatto there are six unstated purposes or functions of public schooling, (1)the adjustive or adaptive function explains how schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority, precluding critical judgment completely. (2) The integrating function or “conformity function” is to make children alike as much as possible. (3) Diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student’s proper social role by documenting evidence on cumulative records. (4) The differentiating function explains that once the student’s social role has been determined, children are to be sorted by role and only receive training as far as their destination in the social machine merits, and no further. (5) The selective function refers to Darwin’s theory as what he called “favored races”. The idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock, schools are meant to tag the unfit- with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments- enough so that peers will accept them as inferior and bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. (6) The propaedeutic function says a small fraction of kids will be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged.
From my own experience as having been a student at a public school and also a charter school in high school I think I have a bit more knowledge and experience having been apart of two completely different schools. At Aptos High I felt like these six unstated purposes of public schooling were what the school was trying to impose of the students and it was so hard to branch out actually challenge ones self or any of the things we were being “taught”. With such large classes and over-crowding and students unable to sit in class there were groups of students always uninformed and usually off doing their own thing while the class was split apart, the working students and the goofing off students. When at the end of the day both groups graduated with the same diploma when all was said and done. When I had had enough I decided that Cypress Charter School would be a better fit for me. The school was a very small campus behind an elementary school consisting of four portable buildings and an office. The classes were much smaller and consisted of students of all age. There were no “freshman” or “seniors” we were all unified and worked together to help one another enjoy school and better each other’s education by offering help and getting help whenever help was needed. If it wasn’t for my change in schooling I don’t think I would have the same view I have today nor would I think education is such a big deal even now in college because of my horrible expericence with such a large public school and all the faults and difficulties I saw and experienced every day.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Week One
My team was assigned to read the introduction to Rereading America. It was important to read because it helped me understand what was to expect this semester, better understand the topics we will be discussing in class, and also how to think critically while also challenging cultural myths.
The intro begins by explaining what critical thinking means, and “instead of simply collecting facts, a critical thinker probes them, looking for underlying assumptions and ideas.” Explaining that, “a critical thinker cultivates the ability to imagine and value points of view different from her own- then strengthens, refines, enlarges, or reshapes her ideas.” The author then goes on to explain the power of cultural myths and how culture shapes the way we think, it tells us what “makes sense”. Holding cultures together by providing shared customs, ideas, beliefs, and values, as well as a common language. The author reminds us that, “good critical thinkers in all academic disciplines welcome the opportunity to challenge conventional ways of seeing the world; they seem to take delight in questioning everything that appears clear and self-evident.” Helping me realize that I will need to think a lot deeper and question things I may never question, things that seem simple may be more complex once looked at and evaluated critically.
The author then explains the structure of Rereading America, breaking the book into six chapters each one addressing one of the dominant myths of American culture. Starting off closest to home with the myth of the model family, next turning to the myth of educational empowerment. Explaining that they chose to start by examining home and education cultural myths because of the impact both of them seem to have on students and most all students being able to relate to both with having mixed views and experiences with both. Following up with possibly the most known of all American myths, the American Dream. The chapter is titled “Money and Success” and addresses the idea of unlimited personal opportunity that has brought so many to America in pursuit of “the dream. In addition, the chapter lets you weigh some of he costs the dream and to reconsider each persons definition of a successful life.
The second half of the book focuses on three cultural myths that offer greater challenges because they touch on highly charged social issues. Chapter four, named “Created Equal” examines myths that powerfully shaped ethnic and racial relations in the U.S. Probing at the nature of prejudice, this chapter also explores how prejudicial attitudes are created and ethnic identities within a race-divided society. Chapter five considers the socially constructed categories of gender and the traditional roles that enforce differences between men and women. Noting that culture divides and defines our world and channels our experience into oppositions like black and white, straight and gay, etc. The sixth and final chapter is named, “Ah Wilderness”. It addresses the American attitude toward nature and the environment. It offers you the opportunity to look at and engage yourself with some of the most talked about environmental challenges involved with climate change and global warming.
Next the author explains the power of dialogue explaining, “ Critical thinking is a matter of dialogue and debate- discovering relationships between apparently unrelated ideas, finding parallels between your own experiences and the ideas you read about, exploring points of agreement and conflict between yourself and other people. Then we learn about active learning and how to read the selections in this book and what we should be doing while we read such as asking questions about what we read while also annotating and writing notes on the pages where we think it is important while showing us examples and also how to analyze and work with visual images throughout the book and their significance.
The intro begins by explaining what critical thinking means, and “instead of simply collecting facts, a critical thinker probes them, looking for underlying assumptions and ideas.” Explaining that, “a critical thinker cultivates the ability to imagine and value points of view different from her own- then strengthens, refines, enlarges, or reshapes her ideas.” The author then goes on to explain the power of cultural myths and how culture shapes the way we think, it tells us what “makes sense”. Holding cultures together by providing shared customs, ideas, beliefs, and values, as well as a common language. The author reminds us that, “good critical thinkers in all academic disciplines welcome the opportunity to challenge conventional ways of seeing the world; they seem to take delight in questioning everything that appears clear and self-evident.” Helping me realize that I will need to think a lot deeper and question things I may never question, things that seem simple may be more complex once looked at and evaluated critically.
The author then explains the structure of Rereading America, breaking the book into six chapters each one addressing one of the dominant myths of American culture. Starting off closest to home with the myth of the model family, next turning to the myth of educational empowerment. Explaining that they chose to start by examining home and education cultural myths because of the impact both of them seem to have on students and most all students being able to relate to both with having mixed views and experiences with both. Following up with possibly the most known of all American myths, the American Dream. The chapter is titled “Money and Success” and addresses the idea of unlimited personal opportunity that has brought so many to America in pursuit of “the dream. In addition, the chapter lets you weigh some of he costs the dream and to reconsider each persons definition of a successful life.
The second half of the book focuses on three cultural myths that offer greater challenges because they touch on highly charged social issues. Chapter four, named “Created Equal” examines myths that powerfully shaped ethnic and racial relations in the U.S. Probing at the nature of prejudice, this chapter also explores how prejudicial attitudes are created and ethnic identities within a race-divided society. Chapter five considers the socially constructed categories of gender and the traditional roles that enforce differences between men and women. Noting that culture divides and defines our world and channels our experience into oppositions like black and white, straight and gay, etc. The sixth and final chapter is named, “Ah Wilderness”. It addresses the American attitude toward nature and the environment. It offers you the opportunity to look at and engage yourself with some of the most talked about environmental challenges involved with climate change and global warming.
Next the author explains the power of dialogue explaining, “ Critical thinking is a matter of dialogue and debate- discovering relationships between apparently unrelated ideas, finding parallels between your own experiences and the ideas you read about, exploring points of agreement and conflict between yourself and other people. Then we learn about active learning and how to read the selections in this book and what we should be doing while we read such as asking questions about what we read while also annotating and writing notes on the pages where we think it is important while showing us examples and also how to analyze and work with visual images throughout the book and their significance.
Prop. 30 Op-Ed Article
http://0-search.proquest.com.library.cabrillo.edu/nationalnewscore/docview/1033589331/13912119E7A46E5568C/4?accountid=39584
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