Amster: Moving our state sideways, not forward

Randall is justifiably frustrated with the state's prospects for educational and budgetary sanity, and it comes through in his writing bigtime, bordering on despondency. Who can blame him? It's gonna be ugly.

TUSD deserves applause for putting up a fight for its kids, but the Ethnic Studies program is going down. New EdSupe John Huppenthal has been as clear about that as his predecessor, and despite the oft-heard Republican love for local control, local control that in any way serves the needs of brown students is off the table for this and the next few years. Times are tough for the scapegoats. There will be worse.

One quibble, Randall: Since the US didn't exist until the founders invented it, by definition none of their parents could have been citizens before that point. They defined citizenship on the basis of maleness, European heritage and owned property, of course. I get the feeling our Legislature would like to return to those halcyon days.