Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Thinking?

 

I recently read about CLA+ (College Learning Assessment Plus) – a test that is given to college freshmen and college seniors. The CLA+ measures critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving and writing since it requires that the students manipulate information and data in real world circumstances. It is given to freshmen and seniors in order to measure how much better they got at learning to ‘think’ after four years at a given university.

When I read that the CLA+ measured ‘thinking’ in real world circumstances, I immediately thought that the members of the California legislature should be required to take this test! Of course they would refuse, and I can imagine a lot of their responses being something like: “Measure my thinking! Why?” or “The real world . . . are you nuts!”

On the same day that I read about CLA+, I read how some colleges and universities are struggling to repair aging infrastructure. Do the colleges, the universities and the community colleges in California have such a problem? Is the Pope a Catholic??

In fact the California State University System (CSUS) has a deferred maintenance tab of $2.6 billion according to the Hechinger Report published in The Atlantic in July, 2016. But it doesn’t end there – as the University of California system needs $1.2 billion and the Community College system needs an additional $6 billion for deferred maintenance.

How is the state handling this huge deferred maintenance issue?

Poorly, as usual – just think about how poorly those in charge handled the deferred road and infrastructure maintenance in the last few years, and the resultant significant upcoming gas tax.

The Governor’s Budget Proposal for 2016-17 includes one time funding of $35 million for deferred maintenance for CSUS – $35 million for a deferred maintenance need of 2.6 billion! To put this in perspective the budget for 2016-17 also includes a one time Cap and Trade funding of $35 Million for CSUS to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I know that Governor Brown and the Democratic legislature are agog over greenhouse gases, but apparently they are not aware that, in general, $1 in maintenance today will avoid $3 in restoration costs later!

Anyone who owns a house or runs a business realizes that deferred maintenance funding needs to be anticipated and that it needs to be budgeted for . . . before the s*** hits the fan. Of course this sort of anticipatory thinking does not occur to either the Democratic legislature or to the Democratic governor in Sacramento.

The more I think about it, administering CLA+ to the governor and the legislature in California would be a waste of time as it seems that in Sacramento, there is little actual ‘thinking’ to measure.

 

 

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