Wednesday, May 29, 2019

PEW - VAST MAJORITY OF ILLEGALS CAN'T OR WILL NOT SPEAK ENGLISH AND TURN SCHOOLS INTO DUMPSTERS

HOW MANY AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS MUST PAY OUT MILLIONS BECAUSE MEXICANS DON'T WISH TO SPEAK ENGLISH?




Pew Research: Vast Majority of Illegals, 4-in-9 Legal Immigrants, Not English Proficient



Learn English
Associated Press
JOHN BINDER
539
2:28

The vast majority of illegal aliens and a sizeable portion of legal immigrants living in the United States are not proficient in the English language, a survey finds.

A Pew Research Center study finds that an overwhelming majority of the 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. do not define themselves as being proficient in English. Despite a slight uptick in the number of illegal aliens who claim they are English proficient, still only about 34 percent said they are proficient in English.
Likewise, only about 57 percent of legal immigrants — that is, legal foreign-born residents whom the federal government has admitted to the country — are proficient in English, according to the Pew Research study.
Illegal aliens arriving to the U.S. from Mexico, Northern Triangle countries, and other parts of Latin America have exceptionally low English proficiency rates. For example, only about 25 percent of illegal aliens from Mexico said they were English proficient.
Similarly, only 22 percent of illegal aliens from the Northern Triangle said they were proficient in English, as well a minority of 43 percent of illegal aliens from other Latin American countries.
Overall, Pew Research estimates that only about 3.4 million illegal aliens of the entire illegal alien population said they were English proficient.
As Breitbart News has chronicled, foreign language-speakers have increasingly made up the U.S. population, forcing Americans to adapt in their day-to-day lives and work environment to non-English atmospheres.
For example, nearly half of all residents in the country’s biggest cities speak a foreign language at home, according to research by the Center for Immigration Studies.
Every year, a new flow of illegal aliens either cross the U.S.-Mexico border or overstay their visas and compete against the majority of working and middle class Americans for oftentimes entry-level and generally lower wage jobs. Americans are not only subjected to this illegal labor market competition but also must compete against an additional 1.2 million legal immigrants who are admitted to the U.S. annually.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder

"The costs of illegal immigration are 

being carefully hidden by Democrats."


Accounting for these differences reveals 

that California's real poverty rate is 20.6 

percent – the highest in America, and 

nearly twice the national average of 12.7 

percent.


"The public schools indoctrinate their young charges to hate this country and the rule of law. Illegal aliens continue overwhelming the state, draining California’s already depleted public services while endangering our lives, the rule of law, and public safety for all citizens."

Least-Educated State: California No. 1 in Percentage of Residents 25 and Older Who Never Finished 9th Grade; No. 50 in High School Graduates


New Haven, California teacher strike enters second week
Striking teachers in the New Haven Unified School District, 30 miles south of Oakland, California, returned to their pickets for the sixth day Tuesday. Backroom negotiations between district officials and the New Haven Teachers Association (NHTA) failed to reach any tentative contract for teachers to vote upon. Roughly 600 teachers are on strike in the district, which covers Union City and South Hayward, California, and serves roughly 12,000 students.
Over the weekend, representatives from the NHTA and its parent organization, the California Teachers Association (CTA), met with district officials in what they claimed were “marathon” negotiating sessions that lasted for over 11 hours each on Friday and Sunday.
According to union and district officials the only unresolved issue is teacher pay. After initially demanding a 20 percent pay raise over two years, a $1,500 retention stipend, and several other items, the NHTA quickly backpedaled to a mere 10 percent salary increase over the two school years from 2018-20. The union is raising no demands to deal with the district’s large class sizes, which are set to balloon for elementary school teachers from 25 to 30, or poor staffing ratios. Further, in previous contract negotiations the union allowed the district to shift 100 percent of medical benefit costs onto teachers, whose medical plans now run as high as $24,000 per year, and the NHTA has made no effort to shift these costs back onto the district.
In response to the union’s capitulation on their initial demands, the district is offering an insulting one-time three percent bonus, a one percent pay raise for the 2019-20 school year, and an extra 0.5 percent for each additional $1 million received in state funding, capped at one percent. On Sunday night, the district sent an email to teachers threatening that any salary increase will be based on cutting $7.8 million from the budget. The district has slated 25 classified (support staff) positions for elimination, the layoff of an unspecified number of teaching positions, and the closure of a school.
Significantly, in contrast to every other recent teacher strike, the New Haven strike is having no financial impact upon the school district whatsoever. Every school district receives funding based on student attendance, but near the end of the school year they can simply report their average daily attendance for that year. New Haven officials deliberately stalled the negotiations process until after this date, so they are now falsely reporting normal attendance figures, despite an overall attendance rate of less than 12 percent during the strike. NHTA officials likely knew that the district would use this tactic, yet they did nothing to fight it or mobilize their membership prior to the cutoff date, and teachers now face intransigent district officials with nothing on the line.
Every day, New Haven teachers are losing roughly 0.55 percent of their annual salary, and they are receiving no strike pay from the NHTA, the CTA, or their parent union, the National Education Association (NEA). Instead, the unions are merely offering teachers interest-free, $100-per-day loans that must be repaid within a year. New Haven teachers have already been forced to take 24 furlough days over the past three years, an effective 13 percent pay cut.
Given this situation, it is likely that the district will continue stonewalling, knowing full well that teachers cannot afford to stay on strike without pay until the end of the school year, June 13.
In a video posted to the NHTA Facebook page after district officials left the building Sunday night, NHTA President Joe Ku’e Angeles said, “Our hope is that something could change, but I’ll be honest with you, based on the conversation today that is not likely. The conversation has not moved from the position they were in when they came in on Friday.”
Angeles continued, “I hate to say this, because it’s not our way to do this, but we’re probably going to be back on strike next week. And I say that with all derision, because that’s not what we want to do.” Angeles then postured as militant, calling upon parents and the community to demand a “recall” of the school board and other elected officials.
In another press conference Thursday, Angeles told teachers to put their faith in the Democrats. In a clear signal that he is planning to capitulate, Angeles said, “We will be contacting our elected official Tony Thurmond to help sort out this conversation that’s happening here now and in Oakland earlier.”
During the seven day Oakland teachers strike, the Oakland Education Association (OEA) praised Thurmond as the “adult in the room” and hid from their membership that Thurmond was demanding behind closed doors that the strike be called off. After Thurmond “helped negotiations,” the OEA announced a tentative agreement a few days later accepting over $22 million in budget cuts, school closures and a pay raise below inflation.
New Haven teachers must reject the entire framework put forward by the unions, which accepts the lie that there “is no money” for public education and that budget cuts and school closures are necessary. The union tells teachers to trust the Democratic Party that has controlled California politics for decades and overseen the unending assault on public education in the state. California is home to 144 billionaires, the majority of whom live in the Bay Area. While schools are starved of funds and teachers cannot afford rent and healthcare, the vast wealth of society is locked away in the private fortunes of the obscenely wealthy, and hundreds of billions of dollars are squandered on war around the globe and savage attacks on immigrants in the United States.
In order to break free from their district-by-district isolation and fight all budget cuts and closures, teachers must form independent rank-and-file strike committees to forge links with teachers across the state and the entire country.
Whatever deal is ultimately reached between the NHTA and the district, teachers should insist on being given adequate time—at least 48 hours—to review and discuss the contract before voting on it. In order to be able to hold the picket lines and expand the struggle beyond the New Haven School District, teachers should demand weekly strike pay from the unions. The dues which they have paid over the course of years have gone not to a strike fund, but almost entirely into the paychecks of the top level union bureaucrats in the CTA and NEA, with over a dozen receiving salaries of over $300,000 a year, and into the campaign coffers of the Democratic Party.
The fight to defend public education is a political struggle. A genuine solution to the crisis of education and the catastrophic underfunding of schools will require a massive redistribution of wealth.

San Diego Sweetwater High School District to lay off 82 educators and staff amid investigation of budgetary fraud

On Tuesday, May 28 the Sweetwater Union High School District (SUHSD) School Board will meet to approve the elimination of 82 staff and educators from the district for the 2019-2020 academic year.
SUHSD, located in southwestern San Diego County, near the US-Mexico border, is the largest secondary school district in California with 29 schools—14 high, 11 middle, and four adult schools. It has more than 1,500 teachers, 42,000 students, and 32,000 adult learners.
Buried deep within the board’s Tuesday evening agenda is item L-6, a vote on the terminations, which will include the layoffs of nine bus drivers, 29 office workers, 13 custodians, 11 instructional assistants, four information technical assistants, and two transportation attendants among others.
In total, 68 identified and general classified employees will be eliminated in addition to 14 upper management positions with the aim of saving $6.4 million. While district and union officials have told teachers that they will not be affected by the cuts this year, the elimination of these positions will be deeply felt within the classrooms. Teachers will be provided fewer instructional assistants, asked to perform more of their own custodial work and have less administrative support, while students and their families will face more cuts to school bus programs.
The 82 terminations only pertain to the upcoming academic year, with more to follow in the coming years as the district pursues increased austerity to offset a budget deficit of $20 million-$23 million.
The Sweetwater Education Association (SEA) union began bargaining earlier this month for a new three-year contract to replace the current one, which is set to expire June 30.
The SEA is pursuing contract negotiations amid revelations that the district continues to report false information about its finances and substantially underreport its debt, along with widespread allegations of fraud and mismanagement of funds.
According to the San Diego Union Tribune, the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) informed the Sweetwater School District that it will end the current fiscal year with $20 million to $23 million in interfund borrowing debt, an amount far greater than the $8 million reported by the district in April.
SUHSD budget deficit was initially revealed to the public in October 2018 under newly hired CFO Dr. Jenny Salkeld. However, an investigation by the San Diego Union Tribune revealed that a recently retired auditor, Frances Martinez, had discovered financial “mismanagement” nine months prior, in April 2018, after performing an internal audit of the district’s finances.
Martinez found that Sweetwater’s finance department was illegally conducting wire and phone transfers of millions of dollars from the district’s clearing account, a practice prohibited by state law.
In a board meeting held December 17, the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) chief executive officer, Michael Fine, revealed that 302 entries in the district’s accounting system were manipulated to show that the district had more money than it actually did.
A December 2018 external audit by FCMAT has yet to release its full findings. An initial audit revealed evidence indicating a cover-up of the district’s financial problems.
Despite this, the SEA continues to negotiate, accepting without any serious challenge the district’s premise that teachers must sacrifice to fill a budget shortfall, which is likely the result of fraudulent activity. Millions in cuts have already been pushed through by the SUHSD and the SEA, which, aligned with the Democratic Party, opposes the mobilization of teachers throughout the district and the state to fight layoffs, furloughs and cuts.
As one educator remarked at a March SEA meeting, “This board will likely be brought up on fraud charges, why should we bargain with them, why should we accept their numbers when they’re the ones who got us into this mess?”
Another educator posted on social media, “...all we are being told is ‘how to deal with these cuts.’ I don’t understand why the media, the county office of ed, and the entire world isn’t asking, ‘where is the money?’ No one is moving to investigate, no one is moving to interrogate, no one seems to care—except us.”
In a calculated public relations effort by the board, officials led by Superintendent Karen Janney, have attempted to place the blame of the financial mismanagement on their accounting software, TrueCourse, claiming the decade-old software is outdated.
However, it is not the software that can be blamed for the manipulation of line item entries. Nor can it explain the mysterious exodus of former Director of Finance Doug Martens and Chief Financial Officer Karen Michel who both retired from the district last summer as revelations of millions of dollars missing began to unfold.
A few weeks ago, the Sweetwater school board voted unanimously to purchase a costly financial software management system, Infor Lawson, while defying county officials who recommended free software and insisted that SUHSD use a bidding process before purchasing. Infor Lawson will cost the district $1.8 million over the next five years for the subscription in addition to roughly $1.8 million for implementing the new software, totaling at least $3.6 million dollars.
The cost of the software alone would more than cover the salaries of all 68 staff who will be laid off, excluding upper management, exposing the degree of the manufactured crisis. Educators and staff must demand that none of these positions be cut.
Mass austerity measures within the district have already taken place with the full support of the SEA. Credit recovery for students and after-school programs such as tutoring have already been cut. Additionally, career technical education and extra support teachers, known as curriculum intervention specialists, have been terminated.
Just before the winter break, the SEA and the school board passed the Supplemental Early Retirement Plan (SERP) to pressure older, higher paid to teachers to accept voluntary early retirements. Claiming that the SERP would significantly offset the deficit, the SUHSD and SEA created the plan that affected thousands of students who lost their teachers in the middle of the current school year.
Two unpaid furlough days for all teachers were also included in the SERP. The early retirement and furlough deal were sold to teachers by the SEA as a means of “protecting jobs.” Despite the claim that the SERP would protect new teachers from getting pink slips for the 2019-2020 academic year, a clause in the contract states that this can be overruled in the case of a Reduction in Force (RIF) or renegotiation with the SEA, which is currently underway in negotiations.
Teachers in the US and internationally are on the move, demanding an end to decades of austerity and union-backed concessions. The largest movement in decades of teachers in the US and internationally, including strikes by Polish, Mexican and Chinese teachers has taken place over the past 18 months.
In the US, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have worked to isolate and shut down every strike before it could break out into a broader movement.
It is vital that Sweetwater teachers link up with their counterparts in New Haven, California, Oregon, the Carolinas and other ongoing struggles. Teachers must build rank-and-file committees to fight austerity, demand the opening of the financial books and all union-management negotiations, and stop cuts to education staff and programs.

Immigration Is the Elephant in the Room

in L.A. School Strike


https://www.cis.org/Camarota/Immigration-Elephant-Room-LA-School-Strike?utm_source=E-mail+Updates&utm_campaign=7503f20bde-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_08_27_04_17_COPY_01&utm_m

 

By Steven A. Camarota on January 25, 2019

The recently settled teachers' strike in the Los Angeles Unified School district was a bitter dispute about resources, with class size and lack of staff support taking center stage. The tables below show that immigration's impact on the school system is enormous. Immigration has added large numbers of students to the county, but at the same time a very large share of both legal and illegal immigrants have modest levels of education and almost certainly pay less in taxes than natives who have higher levels of education and incomes. Immigration has also added significantly to the number of public-school students in the county who live in poverty and speak a language other than English at home. Overall enrollment has not increased in the district in recent years, but immigration has reduced the proportion of students whose families pay sufficient taxes to cover education costs, creating the ongoing strains on the district budget.
Although it is not possible to use Census Bureau data to look at only residents of L.A. Unified, it is possible to examine Los Angeles County to gain insight into what's happening. We identify legal and illegal immigrants based on the methodology used in this report. The data comes from the public-use files of the Census Bureau's 2012 to 2016 American Community Survey.
Among the findings for L.A. County:
·         Public-school students from immigrant-headed households comprise 58 percent of public-school students in Los Angeles County (Table 2).
·         Of all students in the county, 22 percent are from illegal-headed households and 36 percent are from legal immigrant households (Table 2).
·         The poverty rate for students from both legal and illegal immigrant households is more than 50 percent higher than that of those from native-headed households (Table 1).
·         Of students in poverty, 70 percent are from immigrant households — 28 percent from illegal households and 42 percent from legal households (Table 2).
·         Of students who speak a language other than English at home, 82 percent are from immigrant households — 35 percent from illegal households and 47 percent from legal households (Table 2).
·         47 percent of illegal-immigrant-headed households are headed by a person who did not graduate high school; the figure is 30 percent for legal-immigrant-headed households. This compares to 7 percent of native-headed households (Table 3).
·         The average income of illegal-immigrant-headed households is only 58 percent that of native-headed households; for legal-immigrant-headed households it is 79 percent of native-headed households (Table 4).
·     Illegal-immigrant-headed households have three times as many students in public school on average as native-headed households; for legal-immigrant-headed households it is 50 percent higher. (Table 4).
·         Illegal immigrants (ages 25-64) are more likely to hold a job (76 percent) than natives (74 percent). The rate for legal immigrants is somewhat lower at 70 percent (Table 5).

  

Pollak: Educating Illegal 


Aliens and Their Children 


Costs L.A. Schools 


Hundreds of Millions Per 


Year



Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty
 18 Jan 2019164
3:03

The ongoing strike by the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) union against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is about teacher pay, classroom size, support staff, and especially charter schools, which the union says take money away from the district.

Left unspoken, however, is the cost of educating illegal aliens, and their children — which could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars per year, if not billions, experts say.
Steven A. Camarota, director of research, at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Breitbart News on Friday that “between one-fifth and one-fourth of the students in LAUSD are the children of illegal immigrants — though most of those were born in the U.S.” He said that a smaller percentage of the students (“in the single digits”) are illegal immigrants themselves.

With roughly 700,000 students in the district, at a 

cost of over $13,000 per student, that means the 

district could be spending about $1.8 billion 

annually on educating the children of illegal 

immigrants. The total annual expenses for the 

LAUSD in 2017-2018 amounted to $7.52 billion.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) put the cost of educating the children of illegal aliens statewide at over $12 billion in a 2014 study. A significant proportion of those students are served by the LAUSD.
Twenty years before, with a much lower population of illegal aliens, the U.S. General Accounting Office — in a study prepared for then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) estimated that California spent $1.6 billion on educating the children of illegal aliens. The cost has increased almost tenfold as the “undocumented” population has grown.
The exact numbers are elusive, but even a conservative estimate would put the costs of educating the children of illegal aliens in the LAUSD in the same ballpark as the costs of charter schools, which unions complain cost the district some $600 million per year in lost funding.
The U.S. Supreme Court held in Plyler v. Doe (1982) that students could not be denied a free public education on the basis of their immigration status.
However, the continued arrival of illegal aliens has arguably strained the public education system — and will continue to do so unless the country’s borders are secured.
Yet no one in L.A. seems to be discussing the problem.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

 

CALIFORNIA and the RISE OF THE LA RAZA MEXICAN FASCIST WELFARE STATE

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/08/they-invading-horde-waving-their.html


"The costs of illegal immigration are 


being carefully hidden by Democrats."


Accounting for these differences reveals 

that California's real poverty rate is 20.6 

percent – the highest in America, and 

nearly twice the national average of 12.7 

percent.


"The public schools indoctrinate their young charges to hate this country and the rule of law. Illegal aliens continue overwhelming the state, draining California’s already depleted public services while endangering our lives, the rule of law, and public safety for all citizens."

 

 Least-Educated State: California No. 1 in Percentage of Residents 25 and Older Who Never Finished 9th Grade; No. 50 in High School Graduates



California Gov. Jerry Brown and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) outside the U.S. Capitol, March 22, 2017. (Getty Images/Alex Wong)
(CNSNews.com) - California ranks No. 1 among the 50 states for the percentage of its residents 25 and older who have never completed ninth grade and 50th for the percentage who have graduated from high school, according to new data from the Census Bureau.
Texas ranks No. 2 for the percentage of its residents 25 and older who have never completed ninth grade and 49th for the percentage who have graduated from high school.
9.7 percent of California residents 25 and older, the Census Bureau says, never completed ninth grade. Only 82.5 percent graduated from high school.
8.7 percent of Texas residents 25 and older never completed ninth grade, and only 82.8 percent graduated from high school.
California and Texas—while having the highest percentages of residents 25 and older who never finished ninth grade and the lowest percentages who graduated from high school—are the nation’s two most populous states.
In fact, the 2,510,370 California residents 25 and older who, according to the Census Bureau, never finished ninth grade outnumber the entire populations of 15 other states.
In California, children are required to attend school from six years of age until they are 18. “California’s compulsory education laws require children between six and eighteen years of age to attend school, with a limited number of exceptions,” says the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, an agency of the California state government. (The National Center for Education Statistics also indicates that children in California are compelled by law to attend school from 6 to 18 years of age.)
Massachusetts ranks No. 1 for the percentage of its residents 25 and older—42.1 percent--who have earned at least a bachelor’s degree.
These rankings are based on data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 5-year estimates, which were released this month.
In the survey, the Census Bureau asks respondents to specify the level of educational attainment for each individual in their household. The question is: “What is the highest degree or level of school this person has COMPLETED. Mark (X) ONE box. If currently enrolled, mark the previous grade or highest degree received.”
The survey form then offers the respondent multiple options ranging from “no schooling completed” to “professional degree” or “doctorate degree.” If an individual has not earned a high school degree, the respondent is asked to specify the highest grade the individual actually completed—ranging from “nursery school” through “12th grade—NO DIPLOMA.”
The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey queries a random sample of more than 3.5 million U.S. households each year and publishes a one-year estimate for each year. The five-year estimate, the bureau says, “is a weighted average of the five one-year estimates.” The newly released five-year estimates are for the period from 2013 through 2017.
Nationwide, 5.4 percent of residents 25 and older have never finished ninth grade, according to the latest five-year estimates.
Ten states exceeded the nationwide level of residents 25 and older who have never finished ninth grade. These include: California (9.7 percent), Texas (8.7 percent), New York (6.5 percent), New Mexico (6.5 percent), Kentucky (6.1 percent), Nevada (5.9 percent), Arizona (5.9 percent), Mississippi (5.6 percent), Rhode Island (5.5 percent), and Louisiana (5.4 percent).
Wyoming—with 1.8 percent—had nation’s smallest percentage of residents 25 and older who never finished ninth grade.
In seventeen states, the percentage of residents 25 and older who at least graduated from high school was less than the nationwide percentage of 87.3 percent.
These seventeen states included: California (82.5 percent), Texas (82.8 percent), Mississippi (83.4 percent), Louisiana (84.3 percent), New Mexico (85 percent), Kentucky (85.2 percent), Alabama (85.3 percent), Arkansas (85.6 percent), Nevada (85.8 percent), West Virginia (85.9 percent), New York (86.1 percent), Georgia (86.3 percent), Tennessee (86.5 percent), South Carolina (86.5 percent), Arizona (86.5 percent), North Carolina (86.9 percent), and Rhode Island (87.3 percent).
Nationwide, 30.9 percent of residents 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
In nineteen states, the percentage with a bachelor’s degree or higher exceeds the national percentage. These nineteen states include both No. 14 California (32.6) and No. 9 New York (35.3), which respectively ranked No.1 and No. 3 for the percentage of residents 25 and older who never finished ninth grade.
The ten states with the highest percentage of residents 25 and older who earned a bachelor’s degree or higher are: Massachusetts (42.1 percent), Colorado (39.4 percent), Maryland (39 percent), Connecticut (38.4 percent), New Jersey (38.1 percent), Virginia (37.6 percent), Vermont (36.8 percent), New Hampshire (36 percent), New York (35.3 percent), and Minnesota (34.8 percent).
West Virginia—at 19.9 percent—has the lowest percentage of residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
In another seven states, the percentage of residents who have a bachelor’s degree or higher is less than 25 percent. They are: Mississippi (21.3 percent), Arkansas (22 percent), Kentucky (23.2 percent), Louisiana (23.4 percent), Nevada (23.7 percent), Alabama (24.5 percent) and Oklahoma (24.8 percent).
In California, according to the Census Bureau’s five-year estimates, the resident population 25 and older was 25,950,818. Of those individuals, 2,510,370—or 9.7 percent--never completed ninth grade.
Another 2,033,160 California residents 25 and older completed the ninth, tenth, eleventh or twelfth grade—but did not earn a high school diploma. Thus, a total of 4,543,530 California residents 25 and older—or a nation-leading 17.5 percent--have never graduated from high school.
Those 2,510,370 individuals 25 and older in California who never finished 9th grade outnumber the entire populations of 15 other states, according to the Census Bureau’s latest population estimates. These include: Alaska (737,438), Delaware (967,171), Hawaii (1,420,491), Idaho (1,754,208), Maine (1,338,404), Montana (1,062,305), Nebraska (1,929,268), New Hampshire (1,356,458), New Mexico (2,095,428), North Dakota (760,077), Rhode Island (1,057,315), South Dakota (882,235), Vermont (626,299), West Virginia (1,805,832), and Wyoming (577,737).
In Texas, the resident population 25 and older was 17,454,431. Of those individuals, 1,513,995—or 8.7 percent—never completed ninth grade. That outnumbers the populations of 11 states.


Is California the next Detroit?



Robert J. Cristano Ph.D | Wednesday Aug 28, 2013 10:50 AM
This article was originally published by watchdog.org


Most Californians live within about 50 miles of its majestic coastline — for good reason. The California coastline is blessed with arguably the most desirable climate on Earth, magnificent beaches, a backdrop of snow-capped mountains and natural harbors in San Diego, Long Beach and San Francisco. There is no mystery why California’s population and economy boomed after the Second World War.
The Golden State was aptly named. Its Gold Rush of 1849 was followed a century later by massive growth in the 1950s and 60s. Education in California became the envy of the world. Stanford became the Harvard of the West. A college education at the University of California and California State University systems was inexpensive. The Community College system that fed its universities was ostensibly free.
California’s public school system led the nation in innovation and almost all of its classrooms were new. The highway system that moved California’s automobile-driven commerce eliminated the need for public transportation systems like New York and Chicago. The fertile soil of the Central Valley became the breadbasket of the world.
The next golden wave in the 1980s grew from former orchards south of San Francisco known as Silicon Valley. Intel and other companies led the world’s computer and software revolution. In the 1990s, the dot-com revolution brought immense wealth to more Californians. Its innovators, Google, Apple and others, ushered in the Internet Era. The 2000s brought the greatest housing and mortgage boom in the nation’s history, with innovation centered in Orange County. California was truly the Golden State.
Why then would the author have the temerity to ask, “When did Californians become Stupid?” And: Is California the next Detroit?

Unique oblivion

Californians, due to their golden history, live in unique oblivion. When the Tea Party movement caused a political tsunami that swept more than 60 incumbents from political office in 2010, the wave petered out at California’s state line. There was no effect on the 2010 election that saw Democrats take every elected office in the state.
California voters rejected Meg Whitman, the billionaire founder of Ebay, in favor of Jerry Brown. Gov. Brown signed into law a “high-speed rail” bill that will spend $6 billion (the state does not have) to build a train between Fresno and Bakersfield — not Los Angeles and San Francisco, as promised. There was little outcry.
California has a $16 billion deficit that no one seems to notice. Brown’s budget “assumes” that California voters will pass massive tax increases on themselves. If they do not, the 2013 deficit becomes a mind-numbing $20 billion. The budget, mandated to balance by the Calfornia Constitution, has been billions in the red for 10 straight years. How could Californians re-elect the same politicians year after year that produce budgets with multi-billion dollar deficits?
To protect the endangered Delta Smelt, a fish known better as bait, water has been diverted from the Central Valley to the Pacific Ocean. Orchards in the Central Valley have been allowed to wither and die, resulting in unemployment in the Central Valley as high as 40 percent. Imagine Californians living in what was the breadbasket of American now living on food stamps. California voters rejected Republican Carly Fiorina for U.S. Senator in 2010. She ran Hewlett Packard. Instead, they re-elected Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer ,who vowed to protect the Delta Smelt at the expense of the Central Valley.
California has 519 state agencies, like the state Blueberry Commission, that pay each of their commissioners more than $100,000 per year. State politicians, when asked to make cuts, fire teachers and fire fighters to inflict maximum pain on its citizens, while leaving these patronage commissions intact. State politicians have elevator operators in the state capital to push the buttons for them. Their solution for the overcrowding of the state’s prisons is to release inmates or transfer them to local facilities in already bankrupt cities. Yet, they are re-elected by California voters in numbers consistently higher than the old Soviet Politburo.
California’s public education system, once the envy of the world, now ranks 49th in the nation. Its business climate, according to 650 CEOs measured by Chief Executive Magazine, ranked dead last. Apple will take 3,600 new jobs to Austin, Tex. at its $280,000,000 new facility. Texas ranked first in the same survey.
California unemployment is consistently higher than 10 percent of its workforce, but it’s under-employed, according to a Gallup poll, is 20 percent. There are few jobs for college students who graduate with as much as $100,000 in student loans. Despite the overwhelming evidence that bad public policy is chasing away jobs, the same state politicians are sent back to Sacramento every two years.
In the last two months, three California cities have declared bankruptcy. Compton is next. More will follow. Some cities will simply cease to exist due to $500 million in unfunded pension obligations they simply cannot meet.
The unfunded pension obligations, now swamping California cities, were approved by these same politicians whose re-elections are financed by the unions they serve. Nine years ago, outraged Californians recalled Gov. Gray Davis from office for excessive spending and crony capitalism. Nothing has changed a decade later. Its residents believe the golden state will be golden forever. It may not be the case.

Detroit

History has an unpleasant precedent known as Detroit. In the 1950s, Detroit was a major American city with a dynamic labor force built on the manufacturing miracle that won World War II. Its factories quickly converted tanks, planes and artillery shells into trucks, automobiles and refrigerators that baby boom families demanded. Everyone had a good paying job. Detroit Iron had no competition. Its burgeoning middle class was the model of the world with excellent public schools and universities. It was the 4th largest city in America with 2 million inhabitants, with the world’s most dominant industry — the automobile.
Detroit in 2012 is a shadow of that once great metropolis. Its population has shrunk to 714,000. There are 200,000 abandoned buildings in the derelict city. The average price of a home has fallen to $5,700, unthinkable in California terms. Unemployment stands at 28.9 percent. It has a $300 million deficit. Its public education system, in receivership, is a disgrace, producing more inmates than graduates. The jobs have long ago abandoned Detroit for places like South Carolina and Alabama, far hungrier than Detroit’s leaders who believed the gravy train would never end.
In 2006, the teacher’s union forced the politicians to reject a $200 million offer from a Detroit philanthropist to build 15 new charter schools. The mayor has proposed razing 40 square miles of the 138 square miles of this once great American city, returning it to farmland. Even such a draconian plan may not be enough to save the city from itself.
If a hurricane hit Detroit, more of us would know of this tragedy in our midst, but this fate was man-made and not wrought by nature. Detroit has had one party rule for more than 50 years. Louis C. Miriani served from September 12, 1957 to January 2, 1962 as Detroit’s last Republican mayor. Since that time, the Democrats have ruled the Motor City.
John Dingell, Democrat congressman for the 15th District outside Detroit, has served since 1956. His father was the congressman there from 1930 to 1956. Despite the disastrous decline of their city, Detroit voters send him back to Congress every two years.

One-party rule

Similarly, California now has one-party rule. The Democrats of California did not need a single Republican vote to pass their budget. They now own the Golden State’s fate. The politicians’ plan to address the nation’s largest deficit is to raise taxes instead of cutting spending. If the Proposition 30 tax increase passes, the deficit would drop from $20 billion to a mere $12 billion.
Democrats have done nothing to cure the systemic problems of a bloated bureaucracy. Brown, referring to the state’s highway system, once said, “If we do not build it, they will not come.” Caltrans stopped building highways under Brown, but the people kept coming. Now 37 million Californians are locked in traffic jams each day.
Brown was rewarded for such prescience with re-election as Governor. California’s egotistical politicians passed AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006. Dan Sperling, an appointee to the California Air Resources Board, and a professor of engineering and environmental science at UC Davis, is the lead advocate on the board for a “low carbon fuel standard.” The powerful state agency charged with implementing AB 32 and other climate control measures claims the low carbon fuel standard will “only” raise gasoline prices $.30 gallon in 2013. But The California Political Review reported implementation of these the policies will raise prices by $1.00 per gallon.
Detroit was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the world.  Will California follow Detroit down a tragic path to ruin? In 1950, no one fathomed the Detroit of 2010. In 1970, when foreign imports started to make a foothold, the unions and their bought and paid for politicians resisted any change.
In the 1990’s, as manufacturers fled to Alabama and South Carolina, the unions and their political lackeys held firm even as good jobs slipped away. No one in Detroit envisioned their future, even as schools declined, the jobs withered and the once proud city deteriorated in front of their own eyes.

No longer golden

California was once the Golden State. Today, it is no longer so golden. Its schools are in decline. Its business climate is equally dismal. Its cities are facing economic ruin, with exploding pension obligations and a declining tax base. Housing prices have fallen 30 to 60 percent across the state, evaporating trillions of dollars of equity. Unemployment remains stubbornly high and under-employment is rife. The Central Valley is in a depression, with 40 percent unemployment. Do our politicians need any more signs?
Brown’s budget will first slash money to schools and raise tuition on its students, while leaving all 519 state agencies intact. He apparently will protect political patronage at all costs. Jobs, and job creators, are fleeing the state. Intel, Apple, Google and others are expanding out of the state. The best and brightest minds are leaving for Texas and North Carolina. The signs are everywhere. State revenues are declining during many years. Meanwhile, the voters sleep and blindly send the same cast of misfits back to Sacramento each year — just as Detroit did before them.
The beaches are still beautiful. The mountains are still snow capped and the climate is still the envy of the world. Detroit never had that. But will California’s physical attributes be enough? If the people of California want to glimpse their future, they need look no farther than once proud City of Detroit. It can happen here.
Robert J Cristiano, Ph.D., is the Real Estate Professional in Residence at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. and a Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco.

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