California K-12 education and Governor Elections

I was surprised to hear these two facts:
1) California ranks in the bottom of per student spending in USA
2) California teacher's average salary is in top of bracket in USA

Anyone can easily make out why K-12 education in California is in such a bad state. Whatever money we are getting is going for salary. I wouldn't have mind second fact if our students were performing really great. Good salary is essential to attract good quality teachers. It may be true as well. However, there is another fact with above two facts. Once teachers are tenured in California, there is no relationship between there salary hikes and performance. That can and actually leads to complacency. We as a parent see it all the time. Definitely there are so many good teachers. Actually, most of them are pretty good. However, once in a while you do get teachers which you wish were not your child's teachers. Problem is that, nothing can be done against these kinds of teachers. Even if there track/performance record screams that they shouldn't be here.

Unfortunately nobody can do anything. When there is budget cuts, teachers are laid of based on seniority or I should say juniority.

I wish it can be changed.

Is it possible. As of now it is next to impossible. Not that it can't be done. Teacher's union is toooooo strong and won't let this happen.

However, sooner or later it has to be changed.

May be it can slowly be made election agenda and who so ever supports linking of performance and teacher's job or salary hikes. We need to do it.

President Obama's religion

I really wonder about this big debate on President Obama's religion. As most of you know that as per some polls 20% American think that he is Muslim by religion. Some 30% or so are not sure about his religion (in other words thinks that he is not Christian).

I really don't understand all this. Is there any requirement in constitution that president has to be Christian?? To my best knowledge it is not. If not then why any body cares about it. Why make it a big deal. Period.

Mosque at Ground Zero

Very interesting discussion on Mosque near ground Zero in Manhattan in last week's Meet the press. Started with Mayor Rudy Juliani's interview. I had hoped much better performance from man like him. Actually way he was speaking you can make out that he himself not sure about what he is talking about. Honestly, I will be surprised if he can make any dent in politics beyond NYC..

However, there was excellent point for Mosque near ground Zero by other participants. They were very clear on it. Bigotry was their main issue.. If you are non-religious state then you can't differentiate between Mosque or Church or Temple. If you can have Church at proposed site then you can have Mosque.. Allah didn't do 9/11. It was humans.. Just Humans.. Did they ban building of Church or anything like that where that famous bombing of federal building happened in late 80s or early 90s by US citizens who most likely must be Christians. I am not very familiar with exact details or history of that incidence so these are my guess. So either these guys should declare that USA is Religious Christian State. Period.. or let any legal and / or democratic process take it's root..