Month: November 2012

The Much Lambasted Polls Were Right – For the last week, even as polls seemed to shift decisively back to President Barack Obama’s favor, the poll deniers – unskewers if you will – came out in force to argue that the baseline Party ID numbers were wrong, that there would be a tsunami of support by Republicans angry about Obama’s presidency, that the enthusiasm gap would win out.

Nate Silver -a Bayesian math geek – would somehow be one of the more reviled figures at the end of the campaign, for sticking to his mathematical formula that once again proved out, as he nailed the calls on all states despite their closeness.

Measure E and Proposition 30 Both Pass – It was a scary night for local supporters of education because, while the Presidential Election which was predictably close wrapped up early, the first returns did not look promising locally, either for Measure E or Proposition 30.

For much of the night Measure E looked to be in trouble.  The first returns just after 8 pm showed the measure with *just* 65.1 percent of the vote – a healthy vote total but not enough to meet the two-thirds threshold.

VANGUARD ANALYSIS – There’s an old legal aphorism that goes, “If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table.”

It occurs to me yet again, with regard to Measure E, that this is precisely what the No on Measure E side is doing.  They know that they cannot win on the merits of the argument.  They have not won on the merits of the argument in 2011 or 2012.  The public has consistently backed parcel taxes in Davis.  For the last twenty years, between 67 and 75 percent of the voters have approved each parcel tax.

Vanguard Analysis – The school board race this year is even harder to judge than the City Council race was.  In the City Council race, while there was one no brainer, we failed to call Brett Lee’s victory correctly.

I spent far more time than perhaps I should have yesterday, reading not only polls but arguments on both sides of the issue about whether the polls are right.  The bottom line is that those who claim that the polls are wrong and that Romney will win, may not be wrong necessarily.

Within the 30 to 40 percent chance I would give Romney is contained a lot of the scenarios that Republicans and a few prominent Republican strategists have suggested.

By Greg Brucker, et al 

GUEST COMMENTARY – As we continue to make our way through this national and local economic crisis, we find that our schools are still at great risk. With class sizes at the highest levels we’ve experienced and having already lost close to 100 teaching and staff positions since 2008 due to a reduction of over $8.5 million in revenue from the state, we cannot afford to see any more cuts made to education.

Despite all this, teachers, counselors and support staff continue to work hard to deliver the great education offered here as we find incredible joy and accomplishment in seeing the success of our students.

By Hiram Jackson 

GUEST COMMENTARY – This Nov. 13, the 8^th and 9^th grade students of the Holmes Junior High orchestra will perform the National Anthem for the Sacramento Kings home game with Portland. It will be the largest live audience they have ever had, and for some students, it will be their first time ever attending a professional sports game. They will literally play on an NBA court before graduating from high school.

They have this opportunity because the Measure A school parcel tax has made it possible for junior high students to have options for elective classes. Measure A will expire at the end of this school year, but many more future students will have similar opportunities if Measure E passes on Tuesday. Measure E will continue funding for several other programs, but here I point out reasons to value the junior high music program.

By Dan Aiello 

GUEST COMMENTARY – Advocates of universal access to higher education fear California voters, faced with two competing education tax initiatives will fail both, effectively abandoning the state’s historic commitment to provide access to higher education for all.

Prop 30 will provide funding to California’s K-12 schools, but additionally will fund the state’s university, state college and community college systems to offset state budget cuts that have already endangered access to the educational opportunities once guaranteed all qualified students by the state under its Master Plan on Education.

Vanguard Analysis of Presidential Election – For as long as I have been writing on the subject, I have believed that this was 2004 in reverse.  I remember believing up until the very end, when it became clear that Cuyahoga County was not going to be enough that John Kerry would defeat President George Bush.

I was wrong in 2004, I had underestimated Karl Rove and overestimated the willingness of people to make a leap of faith.  But it was a critical point in my understanding of politics.  I have felt since last year that conservatives had made the same mistake as liberals in 2004.

By Claire Sherman

GUEST COMMENTARY – In one way or another, my entire adult life has been focused on education.  I’ve been through Pennsylvania State University, UC Berkeley, the University of Waterloo as a student, and at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, UC Davis, and San Francisco State as a professor.

As a researcher and advocate for child welfare I was employed by the State of California where I assessed and identified the effects of environmental hazards on the health of our school-age children.

VANGUARD Learns Both Randall and Zwahlen Take Senior Exemptions and Do Not Pay Parcel Tax – It was a longshot to begin with, a suit brought by Thomas Randall Jr and Janet Zwahlen claiming that Measure E was unconstitutional and arguing that the ballot wording of the measure was convoluted.

In a press release Thomas Randall writes, “They believe there are constitutional issues when the School Board has decided to apply the law in different ways to different groups.  They see that the fact that home residents who practically will pay the bill of Measure E by themselves, on one hand, are treated entirely different than groups that do not pay the taxes at all or do not pay equally, such as apartment residents, senior citizens and people who do not live in Davis but send their kids to Davis Schools on the other.”

Vanguard Analysis: Thomas Randall has thrown more dirt clogs into the air hoping somehow they will transform themselves into mud and stick to something, anything to give him traction.

A week ago he filed a complaint regarding Measure E with the State Political Fair Practices Commission that was shot down without even an investigation.

GUEST COMMENTARY – I have served on the Davis School Board since 2007.  During that time state funding for education has steadily eroded.  Progress toward closing the achievement gap is painfully slow.  We ask educators to do more with less even as they work to make sure all students achieve success.

I could have found ten – twenty – good reasons not to run for re-election.  Why, then, did I choose to throw my hat back into the ring?