View From Lodi, CA: Schwarzenegger: Immigration, California Public Schools and…Re-Election?


Pity poor California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He`s in for a long grind between now and November 7th
unless he stops his

double speak
about the state`s key issue,
immigration.

Schwarzenegger was blind-sided in

San Diego
last week when, at one of his Town Hall
meetings, a woman grilled him ferociously on border
control and the lack thereof.

In response, Schwarzenegger said that he was

taken aback
at the

emotional intensity
of the crowd`s demand to end
illegal immigration.

Mood on illegal immigration surprises governor

He also backs away from previous support of Prop. 187,
By Carla Marinucci, San Francisco Chronicle July
26, 2006

Where has he been? Immigration has been

headline
news all summer. Every whistle-stop
Schwarzenegger makes in

California
for the next three months will bring the
same heated comments.

Schwarzenegger`s waffling hurts him. Since he assumed
office after the 2003

Recall Gray Davis
election, Schwarzenegger has been
for and against

Proposition 187
; for and against the

Minutemen Civil Defense Corps
; for and against
amnesty and for and against illegal immigration.

But Schwarzenegger`s defense of his Prop 187 flip-flop
(he now rues his 1994 `Yes` vote cast as a
private citizen) caught my eye.

According to Schwarzenegger, he changed his mind when he
worked with illegal immigrants`

children
in

after school programs
.

Strange…I work in

after school programs
too but I come away with a
different and more compassionate view of what must be
done.

If you ask me, no argument to control illegal
immigration is more compelling than to insist that we
stop the in-flow to take care of the

struggling children
already here. That`s compassion.

Here are some of
the conditions that should have jumped out at
Schwarzenegger on his school visits: overcrowding,
inadequate facilities, shortage of credentialed teachers
and

under-performing students.

Maybe
Schwarzenegger is unaware of California`s acute academic
crisis.

Last week, the U.S.
Department of Education, empowered by the

No Child Left Behind Law
, threatened again to
withhold millions of dollars in federal school aid from
California unless, upon parental request, students
transfer out of low-performing sites to non-failing
schools. A low performing school is defined as one that
does not meet its

Adequate Yearly Performance Goal
two years in a row.

California has many
such schools; Lodi, several.

Although the

NCLB
requires that students in failing schools be
given the option of attending elsewhere, there is no
place for them to go. In Los Angeles alone, 250,000
students were eligible for transfers, but only a small
percentage actually switched schools. Angry parents are
threatening to sue.

Now the battle
lines are drawn.

Margaret Spellings
, U.S. Education Secretary, has
imposed an August 15th deadline for
California to

do the impossible
or lose a good chunk of the $700
million it receives annually in Title 1 federal funds.

California
officials predict a logistical nightmare if forced to
comply.

Nevertheless,
Schwarzenegger is willing to exacerbate

California`s K-12 mess
by allowing more students
into the system who are either illegal aliens or the
children of illegal aliens. Those new pupils would be
added to a core of 1.5 million

English Language Learners
already enrolled in
California schools.

But the
indisputable facts argue strongly against
Schwarzenegger`s pro-immigration sympathies, sincere
though they may be.

Obvious is that new
students compete directly with your child for precious
educational resources. If that new student is a

non-English speaker
, then the competition is even
keener.

If you insist on
the dreary and depressing statistics to prove that
illegal immigrants, especially from

Mexico and Central America
, lag in school
performance, then cast your eyes on these facts compiled
by the

National Center for Education Statistics
and
reported on by VDARE.COM`s

Edwin S. Rubenstein
: the status drop out rate in
2003 for 16-to 24-year olds not in school is four times
as high for Hispanics as white, non-Hispanics and more
than twice as high as blacks, non-Hispanics.

Why can`t we
educate those to whom we are already emotionally and
financially committed before we take on

the whole world?

Here`s what really
boils me about Schwarzenegger and his largesse with our
public schools.

Of the five leading
candidates in the 2003 Recall election—Gray Davis,

Cruz Bustamante
, Peter Camejo,

Tom McClintock
and Schwarzenegger, only
Schwarzenegger sent his

four children
to private school.


JOENOTE TO VDARE.COM
readers:

Schwarzenegger is
taking a huge gamble with his switch back to favoring
`comprehensive` immigration reform. His opponent,


State Treasurer Phil Angelides
,
has exactly the same position.


On immigration,
Schwarzenegger and Angelides represent death by fire or
death by ice.


At the moment
Schwarzenegger, a RINO, holds a modest 8-percentage
point lead. But California is overwhelmingly Democratic.
The MSM, the unions, the Democratic State Assembly, the
Latino Caucus and Senators Boxer and Feinstein will
certainly fight for and endorse Angelides.


Look for
Schwarzenegger`s lead to narrow over the summer with the
race becoming a toss up by fall.


The best thing
Schwarzegger has going for him is that the last
incumbent California governor not to be re-elected was
Democrat


Culbert Levy Olson

who lost the 1942 election to


Earl F. Warren
.

Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English
at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly
column since 1988. It currently appears in the


Lodi News-Sentinel
.