> Maybe our great state could use some of this money for education, you know my two
> sons weren't offered any "shop" classes in high school, maybe my grandsons could
> take wood or auto shop if we just cut out the NCRA deal !

I hear you about the shop classes!

In fact, they pretty much left my youngest in a big lurch. My next to youngest had to actually leave school every day on an R.O.P., just to get any practical training at all - he wasn't headed to college by any means. But by my youngest's turn, they had altogether dumped, or de-funded all vocational classes everywhere in the region, including the R.O.P programs. This in a high school with a whopping 25% dropout rate and only a 35% college entrance rate. They weren't preparing them for college, and they also were not preparing them for a vocation either. What the hell did they expect all those kids to do in life anyway.

I suspect they (educators) couldn't have cared less, as they obviously had an agenda of their own. If they gave it any thought at all, what else could they have expected, except that they would just remain dependent on the dole. It's any wonder that the dropout rate was exploding.

Now what is really strange - is that you would complain about a paltry $68 million being wasted on the NWP. But then you suggest using it instead for another even bigger and more grandiose waste - along with the $20 billion or so already going to "education".

Unfortunately, in most areas of California, shop classes were dumped or otherwise gutted of any practical use years ago; even though school budgets were still rising at the time; and even though ALL high school students should be getting vocational training anyway, even if they are college bound. This was well before the State started taking its tribute money from all local coffers. In fact, there was a huge 12 billion surplus at the state level at the time. That was still true just as Gov. Davis took office. It wasn't that long ago, but it was well before any hint of depression hit.

The point is, that money had nothing to do with it. What did have everything to do with it, was the obvious corruption, incompetence, or outright unwillingness, of "educators", to truly educate our kids, or to in any way actually prepare them for adult life.

If we think that money spent on the NWP is just being frittered away - then surely we must also conclude that sending one thin dime more to the dummied down public schools, would be tantamount to BURNING it in a bonfire, on the town square, at high noon!

At least by giving it to the NWP project, some old guys, who long ago did get some vocational training, got to have a real job for a while. And what they built, at least has a reasonable hope of being a public benefit in the furture. More money to the public schools ain't gonna help what's wrong with them - in fact, the institution of "public education" is so thoroughly corrupt, that it'll probably just make it worse.

OPB