[The Daily Commentary for Wednesday, August 30, 2006, has been penned by FlashReport San Diego Correspondent Barry Jantz. After I read this piece, I had two thoughts come to mind — the first is that Barry’s daughter, Kayleigh, rocks! The second is that because he signed SB 1441, I don’t know how to deal with the Governor on a go-forward basis. It was such an obviously bad bill that you wonder what was going through his mind – Flash]
Today was my daughter’s first day of kindergarten. A great day. It goes without saying that Colleen and I are proud of Kayleigh, but we are also blessed to be able to send her to Christian Elementary near La Mesa, part of the acclaimed Christian Unified Schools of San Diego.
Kayleigh had no separation anxiety or any other problem this first day. She’s about as well-adjusted as a kid can be (I know I’m biased, of course), but it also helps that she was in the Pre-K program at the school last year with many of the same classmates, making this "step up" perhaps a much bigger deal for mom and dad than it is for her.
That Pre-K program, because of financial considerations, was under the threat of being discontinued this year. As I understand it, a large donation kept it alive — perhaps only for now — but it is hard for us to think that a program and a great teacher that provided so much character and values to our daughter would not be an option to other children in the years ahead.
That really came home for me this weekend, when Kayleigh and I took in a summer league soccer match at Helix High School, my alma mater. Ever since moving near Helix last year, Kayleigh has been overly interested in what’s happening at the school. The sound of band practice and crowds cheering in the slight distance, along with the fact that daddy went there, and most importantly that the "big kids go there," make a high school in the neighborhood a wonder for a five-year-old girl, someplace she wants to be someday.
Yet, on Sunday she had a new question: "Daddy, is Helix High School a public school?" Yes, I told her, surprised she had ever heard the term…and wondering if she even knew what it meant. "Does that mean they don’t teach about God there?" she asked. I confirmed it as "probably" true (being as nice as I could to a school full of memories for me). "Oh…well I don’t want to go there then," she said matter-of-factly.
OK, I don’t live in never-never land, I know that at fifteen, not five, she may feel markedly different about such a thing, yet in that instant I clearly saw that the values she is learning at home, her attendance at Sunday school, and the character building of one blessed, superb Pre-K teacher by the name of Maggie Putnam have impacted my child. I take quiet comfort in having a bit more confidence — no matter how difficult those dreaded teen years — that my daughter will always be grounded in the values once instilled in me by my parents.
Some might say that a five-year-old couldn’t possibly understand the concept of a public school vs. a private school, or can’t even begin to comprehend that what she is saying is nothing more than repeating the rhetoric foisted upon her by parents, the church, or some brain-washing church-like school.
Whatever. These are choices we make as adults and parents, among them to take our hard-earned money, already taxed for the school system, and pay again so as to send our children to a school that we have confidence will do right not only for their academics, but also for their values and character.
It’s also a choice not to do so.
How dare any politician diminish that choice for me. How dare anyone elected to represent me force my choice of school into having to opt for living by the rules of a state entrenched in relativism. I am repulsed. I am sickened.
I get it that the liberals in the legislature don’t care about — or understand — such frustration. Yet, astonishingly (and I’m only repeating what others have written on these pages), SB 1441 was signed by a Republican governor! The Democrats even gave folks like Nicole Parra a pass to vote no so as to prop her up in her left-moderate district. That would put the Governor left of left-moderate, would it not?
Rest assured, Tom McClintock never would have signed this bill. That’s a no-brainer, but you know what else? Pete Wilson wouldn’t have signed it either. Heck, as Jon Fleischman suggested yesterday morning, Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t have signed the thing only a year ago.
I’ll leave it to the pols, pundits and analysts to explain why Arnold felt he needed to do this, in the midst of crushing Angelides every step of the way to November.
In the meantime, what I do know is that I never thought I’d see the day. I am ashamed for California. I am ashamed of the Governor of this state. And, I will say an extra prayer for my daughter tonight, that she may someday live in a society where values can be held and taught without any fear of discrimination or retribution.