There is a Choice Revolution going on in public education today. Charter schools are at the heart of the increasing number of educational options available to parents—and public-school choice is generally a good outcome of the charter movement.

The federal program Race to the Top, which makes $4.35 billion available to states, requires that they lift caps which now limit the number of new charter schools. Locally, we are likely to see a huge growth in the number of charter schools without the 100-per-year cap imposed by the state of California.

I turned 40 in December. I spent my birthday with family and long-time friends. Many of my friends I have known since age five, from kindergarten in San Jose Unified School District, which equates to knowing most of my friends for more than 30 years. The majority of my friends are not political in their occupations and nearly all of them have never been to a San Jose Council meeting. Instead, they are teachers, nurses, Realtors, attorneys, tech folks, blue-collar skilled tradesmen, stay-at-home parents and—as my Mom likes to point out— most are married with children.

Many of my native San Jose friends have a very positive outlook towards San Jose. Their views are somewhat different than what I hear in my council office, where, typically, I hear alot about what is wrong with our city or questions as to why things aren’t done differently.

This is a special New Year’s weekend edition of San Jose Inside’s weekly open forum. We would like to invite SJI visitors to answer the following question: What would you like to see happen in 2010 to make San Jose a better place?

The City of San Jose is facing a whopping $100 million deficit for fiscal year 2010-11. Something’s got to give. Actually, a lot more than “something” has got to give, be cut, and/or taxed.

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a front page story that questioned the way in which American cities will be run and defined in the future.  In his piece, reporter Conor Dougherty raised a number of issues that need to be addressed here in San Jose.  Dougherty highlighted the troubles and travails of Mesa, Arizona.  He cited Mesa Mayor Scott Smith’s belief that city service levels for his city will not return to prerecession levels for a long time, “if ever.”  In an effort to cut costs, the City of Mesa has gone as far as to hire civilian investigators to do some after-crime reports and investigations, tasks previously done exclusively by police officers.  “‘We are redefining what cities are going to be,’ says Mayor Smith.”

On Nov. 3 at the city council meeting, I removed an item from the consent calendar. The agenda item was asking for council approval to spend $286,700 for software. This particular software would help the housing department manage its loan program. Several years ago the Housing Department purchased software to manage this data, however, it never worked and we ended up going through litigation for eight years.

Last week, Metro’s Fly reported that Sarah Palin might be coming to San Jose to speak before the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce.  One San Jose Inside blogger promised to bring a “box of tomatoes” if she does. If Sarah Palin really does come to San Jose, should we bar our doors and hide the children?

Dear Santa,

I know this is an unusual request from someone far too old to believe, but I truly want to think that you can help. The situation is dire and no one else seems to have the answers. See, Santa, our public school system is vulnerable to collapse if we do nothing to make it brighter. The children you do so much to make cheery this time of year continue to wallow in a school organization stuck in mediocrity. And that is not good enough, especially today.

The Council punted the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) budget last week to February 2010. As has already been highlighted in the news, the state is taking $75 million away from San Jose’s RDA. We need to pay the State off in May and identify where the money is coming from in March (no negotiation or payment plans on this matter are allowed by the State). The legislature, recognizing that this payment would be difficult for all RDA agencies, allowed for borrowing from affordable housing money which is 100-percent funded from RDA. Twenty percent of all RDA money goes off the top to the Housing Department in San Jose.

San Jose isn’t notorious for teens killing teens. But recently there have been two such slayings: one on Halloween night, and the Nov. 10 homicide of a Santa Teresa High School student. The accused could face life imprisonment without the possibility of parole because the U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding if that is legal. 

These two events were of interest to state Sen. John Vasconcellos, who represented Silicon Valley in the California Legislature for 38 years. While chairing virtually every important Assembly committee, and then for five years in the state Senate, Vasconcellos focused on youth in crisis. He championed higher education, mental health initiatives, community-based conflict resolution projects and funding for California’s poorest performing public schools.

Last week, KLIV Radio reported that NBC Sports has learned that the National Football League is encouraging both the 49ers and the Raiders to play in the proposed Santa Clara Stadium.  Will the Raiders and 49ers both call Santa Clara home?

The possibility of the Raiders (or another team) making partial or full use of the Santa Clara Stadium is not really “news.”  The E.I.R. and Stadium Term Sheet both allowed for the possibility.  The Stadium Term Sheet reads, “49ers Stadium Company will have the right to enter into a sublease with a second NFL team, on terms and conditions consistent with and subject to the stadium lease.  Conditions of repayment to the city, forgiveness of advances, and additional revenues to the City of Santa Clara are defined in the term sheet’s outline of conditions.

Whoa! The achievement gap continues to be a very controversial topic to many SJI posters. I was the guest of my wife, Chris, last Wednesday at San Jose’s Downtown Rotary Club. She invited me because County Superintendent Weis was the luncheon speaker presenting about SJ2020 (a City and school district initiative to close the achievement gap), currently in its embryonic stages. When Superintendent Weis participated in the Q & A immediately following his 20-minute talk, the first question from the audience was predictable

The City of San José is facing yet another year of budget deficits. The projected deficit for FY 2010-2011 is over $100 million. We have cut the fat out of our budget and have laid off City and Redevelopment Agency employees. Our situation has been further exacerbated by the terrible job the state legislature did of closing their deficit by taking funding from local municipalities. Unfortunately for the City, we cannot do the same. We must make difficult decisions and have the courage to change our approach to budgeting.

Last Tuesday at the council meeting, we spent approximately 90 minutes discussing the Teamsters Union at the Convention Center. Long story-short, this is a labor dispute between two different union locals that will be settled by the National Labor Relations Board. However, in the meantime, the Convention Center (which is the largest source of the City’s hotel tax receipts and drives airport traffic) is getting negative PR which is affecting prospective convention business in San Jose.

Happy Hanukkah. This is San Jose Inside’s weekly open forum, where comments and opinions on any topic are welcome. What’s on your mind?

San Jose’s movers and shakers are wrestling with two important questions.  First, should the San Jose convention center expansion project move forward?  And second, where should the new federal courthouse be built?

As reported on San Jose Inside last week, the city and state budget crisis has forced the city and its redevelopment agency to scale back the project from $300 million to $140 million.  And, the state’s plan to pull $75 million from the San Jose RDA creates an additional hurdle.  Councilmember Sam Liccardo has indicated that he is, “...not willing to do anything that puts the RDA’s future viability in peril.”

It is very difficult with an overwhelmed system of public education for teachers to nurture the needs of children who have experienced a sordid life. Most times these youth who need just one person to “really” care come from homes and neighborhoods filled with crime, drugs, gangs, and ridden with violence.

As I have discussed on this blog before I began my career as a teacher at Osborne School at Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall. I quickly learned that what is essential in order to become an effective teacher for alternative youth is a professional relationship built with trust, care, and genuineness at its core. In a trusting student-teacher relationship there is a strong possibility that real academic learning and increased student achievement will occur.