California Teacher Blows Whistle

Nine hundred teachers were laid off from the Los Angeles Unified School District.  The district is $650,000 over budget for the next school year.  The following comments by an English teacher help to explain one area that looms large over California's educational crisis.   ================================================== From a California school teacher: "As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of: I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language (ESL) department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title-1 school, meaning that its students average in the lower socio-economic and income levels. Most of the schools you are hearing about are Compton, South Gate High, Bell Gardens, Huntington Park, etc., where their students are protesting.  These are also Title-1 schools. Title-1 schools are on the free-breakfast and free-lunch program. Free breakfast is not a glass of milk and a roll. It is a full breakfast plus a cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make the Marriott proud. Nonetheless, the waste of this food is monumental with trays and trays of it dumped in trash bins uneaten. I estimate well over 50% of the students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% have cell phones.  The school also provides day care centers for unwed teenage mothers, some only 13, so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids. I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department, or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything.  My budget was already substantial, but I ended up buying new computers for the Computer Learning Center, half of which, one month later, were carved with graffiti by unappreciative students who obviously are not grateful to have a free education in America.  We only appreciate what we earn. I have had to intervene several times for young substitute teachers whose classes consist of illegal immigrant students here in the country less than three months, who raised so much Hell with the female teachers, calling them putas (whores) and throwing things, that the teachers were in tears. Free medical care, free education, free food, free day care and more!   Is it any wonder they feel entitled not only to be in this country, but demand rights, privileges and entitlements? To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society, because they like their gardener and/or housekeeper, and they like to pay less for tomatoes, I say, "Spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the true costs." Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases for which we have no cures!  If you do the math produce would be cheaper if we just sent all these people home. Americans, need to wake up.  The guest worker program was a disaster because we didn't have the guts to enforce it.  Does anyone in their right mind really think they will voluntarily leave and return? It does, however, have everything to do with culture: A third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by age 15, and refuses to assimilate, plus an American culture that has become so weak and worried about "political correctness," that we don't have the will to do what is needed." Cheap labor? Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about? Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage, but they actually pay much more in taxes for all the "benefits" we give these people. They typically cost us $10,000 per person, men, women and children.   While consumers don't want expensive produce, government will tell you "Americans don't want the jobs."  But, the bottom line is cheap labor.  The phrase "cheap labor" is a myth, a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as "cheap labor". Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or $6.00/hour.  At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an income tax return, he gets an "earned income credit" of up to $3,200 free. ***This is not just a California issue ... Also.... 1- He qualifies for Section-8 housing and subsidized rent; 2- He qualifies for food stamps; 3- He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care; 4- His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school; 5- He requires bilingual teachers and books; 6- He qualifies for relief from high energy bills; 7- If they are, or become aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI; 8- Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare (All of this at taxpayer's, our expense; 9- He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or Homeownerac™s insurance; 10- Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material; 11- He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits; 12- Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills and his; 13- The American taxpayers also pays for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up. Cheap labor?  No. These are the questions we should be addressing to Presidential candidates for either party. We must take action or we will all go down the drain because a few don't care. And if you think this is bad, just wait until a Democrat becomes President and the redistribution of wealth becomes the norm in this ex-Democracy.  ************************************** Edited from a contribution by Dr. James Rust, Ph.D. Nuclear Physics.