Subject: K-12 Funding and Administration

• The worst kind of Supe

  What kind of guy can go from being state superintendent of the year to an indicted fellow who may be facing four years in the slammer? Try former Capistrano Unified Superintendent James Fleming. Last August, Fleming (once the highest-paid education chief in all the Orange land), retired amid accusations he'd created "enemies lists" of his political foes and used public funds to meddle in an election. The charges, filed under seal mid-May, were unsealed just yesterday. Check out the indictme

  May 25, 2007

• Have you impugned your local librarian today?

  Those wascally wabble wousers at Dissent the Blog, your duly elected South Orange County Community College District watchdogs, have posted for our listenting pleasure a snippet from a recent Board of Disgustees meeting where (Dis)Trustee Don Wagner calls the American Library Association, based on his own sterling research, a "bunch of liberal busybodies." The set up: During that portion of the meeting where Bored Members sleepwalk through consent-worthy items like adding more disinfectant biscu

  February 6, 2006

• Muzzling Troy

  Troy High School in Fullerton has a lot going for it. The combined public and magnet school is known for its high SAT scores, Troy Tech and International Baccalaureate programs, its wins or high placements in the U.S. National Science Olympiad and Western Regional Science Bowl sponsored by NASA/JPL, and recognitions for being among the nation's top schools from President Clinton, the National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence panel and the selection committee for California Distinguished Schools.

  April 11, 2006

• Primary Election Results

  Here are the latest, unofficial results from interesting primary races in Orange County: 29th Senate District Bob Huff 68.4% Dennis Mountjoy 31.6% 33rd Senate District Mimi Walters 73.6% Harry Sidhu 26.4% 60th Assembly District Curt Hagman: 59.8% Larry Dick: 40.2% 71st Assembly District Jeff Miller 57.7% Neil Blais 42.3% 73rd Assembly District Diane Harkey 73.3% Mark C. Patlan 26.

  June 4, 2008

• Bowdlerizing Santa Ana's Past (Canto CXVIII)

  Students of history can only expect so much from Images of America, those slender books of historical photos published by Arcadia Publishing. Most of the people who compile the pictures in this book are well-meaning antiquarians (of the philosophical and age variety), and the people who purchase such tracts are usually of the same ilk. They're not expecting thorough analysis or dredging up the dirty bits of our past; they want photos of parades! This art form is particularly onerous in Orange C

  July 21, 2008

• No Need To Hide, SAUSD

  Thank God for screen grabs. Without them, and without Orange Juice Blog's muckraking, we wouldn't be able to share the (tricky) little hide-and-seek game Santa Ana Unified School District played with its constituents yesterday. Art Pedroza, over at Orange Juice, caught the district in hideout mode when he took a snapshot of their website and wondered aloud why there was no information anywhere -- in English or in Spanish -- about a critical budgetary meeting tonight that will deal with the possi

  December 11, 2008

• Why Doesn't Westminster Commemorate Mendez vs. Westminster?

  A faithful reader recently wrote in a question for my ¡Ask a Mexican! column wondering why the city of Westminster doesn't acknowledge Mendez vs. Westminster, the landmark desegregation case that allowed Mexican kids to attend school with their white peers and served as a precursor to the much-more-famous Brown vs. Board of Education. I thought the letter-writer was mistaken...but nope!The SanTana Unified School District (one of the four school districts named as Mexican-segregators in the Mend

  February 18, 2009

• Spa Getaway Bites Ex-Superintendent in the Butt

  Late yesterday the Capistrano Unified School District released a 54-page termination report detailing the charges that led to ex-superintendent Woodrow Carter's firing on Monday March 9. Carter's spa getaway weekend-- paid for partially by the district and by an architectural firm which was later awarded a lucrative district contract --and reported by the Weekly on March 3, was among the charges that were "sustained" by the board after consulting with attorneys. The lengthy report also finds tha

  March 20, 2009

• Teaching Museum Uses Adventure Films to Help Fund Mendez v. Westminster Exhibit

  Jonathan Copp, RIP.​What do the plucky Museum of Teaching and Learning, an internationally acclaimed film festival and the landmark Mendez v. Westminster School District case of 1946 have in common?All three could learn you something.The Fullerton-based Museum of Teaching and Learning (MOTAL) is struggling to survive amid the economic mess we find ourselves in. It's pinning its hopes on its annual summer social--which this year features selected short films from the Adventure Film Festival--to

  August 20, 2009

• OC's Famous Desegregation Case Finally Gets Its Historical Due, But One Family Feels Left Out

  November 5, 2009