Referring to RB’s comments about faulting children for the mistakes of their parents, it’s true that we should not do that. On the other hand neither can we make up for all those mistakes, nor can we give them a pass when they do wrong themselves.

Teachers and volunteers who care can pitch in as best they can, and that will help a portion. But very rarely if there’s not involved parents at home. The ones who are not we need to hold accountable. I’m not as idealistic as R.B., but I do agree in volunteering and participating (not just sharing ideas).

We all should chip in the best we can, and as we know how. Whatever side of the issue you’re on, how are you helping a local school and student?

And Boss – what you don’t know about teaching is a lot… didn’t any teacher ever inspire you or did they just give you an opportunity to learn? Please don’t assume all kids are self starters with plenty of parental support, shelves full of books, health care and a bag lunch packed every day. I doubt Mr. Bustamante has even one of those.

Mr Bustamante seems to be using his position to impose his rad-lib worldview on kids and have them act out his “fight the man” fantasies. Which helps gets them killed and imprisoned. It’s not as if he’s also teaching them what the criminal laws are. He’s teaching a population (relatively) likely to have violations of sex/drugs-alcohol/violence laws to confront and non-comply with authority – when anyone can see that combination is likely to result in more aggressive & successful prosecution of them.

But maybe he believes all people are created equal?

His job is teaching reading, writing, and math, etc. He’s not a legal studies instructor and “social justice” (code word for “fight the man”) is not a subject of instruction in the public school. They teach it anyway because of their zeal for insurrection.

This is the kind of garbage that good families won’t tolerate in their schools in, say, Danville, Piedmont and Orinda.

It’s too bad the black and brown kids have to go to these rotten schools and white/jewish folks don’t. But I suppose that’s life. You don’t see too many people complaining.

He’s not saving anybody. He’s greasing the skids on their downfall. He’s doing the opposite of what the Catholic Nuns did when they operated St. Columbas in the flats of Oakland. And it has the opposite effect.

Does Mr. Bustamante mean well? Not in my book. He’s young but he’s old enough to know better. He wrote this thread because he revels in teaching “fight the man”. He wants everyone to know what he’s doing so they can admire him for it. He certainly doesn’t care what my generation thinks about the outcome of his activity. It would be interesting to know more of his background to see where the anti-authority comes from. But we can guess. And he’s not alone ion the Oakland Public Schools thinking like this.

This is why communists were once barred from teaching in the state. That was good policy.

Teachers matter, but not in the way you think. Kids need to be offered the opportunity to learn, and that’s the teacher’s job.

Teachers can not and will not ever successfully replace parents.

Hey – how come no one responded to my link with Oakland’s demographic data?

1. The problem with legalizing the undocumented is it encourages more to come. I actually don’t have any problem with the undocumented. I speak Spanish fluently, and I often hire them with great success. They work hard and have always treated me well. No, the problem is not the undocumented but the social welfare programs and the taxes that must be confiscated in order to support them.

2. Public education isn’t on “life support” any more than any other government program. Take a look at Piedmont, Orinda, Lafayette, Palo Alto, etc. Oakland public education has lots of problems because we have terrible demographics. But, things are improving, partly because of gentrification and partly because of widespread cheating on the standardized tests.

I’m afraid your concepts of social mobility have no actual correspondence to the real world. People like you don’t “help” the downtrodden. You’re just filling a slot. The thing that helps them is living in a society ruled by laws. That’s why economic mobility in the US has historically been so high. The real threat to these immigrants is liberal policies which limit freedom and decrease economic mobility. So, you actually are the problem.

Sure, maybe it should be changed. Same goes for a lot of laws out there. I personally think the rules permitting public employee unions should be repealed. And, I think labor unions should lose their anti-trust exemption.

But that doesn’t mean I would tell my kids, or someone else’s kids, to break the law. I think that’s the issue a lot of people on here have with you. How’s about starting out with the presumption that kids should follow the law, and then work on the nuances and civil disobedience lessons at the college level, once we’re sure the kids won’t wind up in jail.

Do you have a source for info re: the German policy re: Spanish immigrants? I assume that was quite a few years back

Also, learn about how Germany dealt with mass undocumented immigration from Spain. They didn’t build a fence and jail the immigrants. Instead they helped Spain’s economy and made it sustainable for workers to stay in their home country where they would prefer to live.

Also, see the UCLA study on the benefit of legalizing undocumented immigrants.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/07/local/la-me-immig7-2010jan07