Wading In

Fairfield Daily Republic August 25, 2011 Do what the good students are doing by Kelvin Wade There were two disturbing stories about education in this paper recently. The first was last week’s “Young Fairfield-Suisun students improve in math on state test.” As my friend Kendall Wright pointed out to me, the headline was a bit misleading. While the article does trumpet the excellent gains made on the STAR test by elementary school math students, as well as the improvement by math students at my alma mater Grange Middle School, it also mentions the disastrous decline in high school math scores. From the article: “At the high school level, each grade taking the test dropped in proficiency or advanced placement: ninth grade fell from 11 percent to 8 percent; 10th grade from 8 percent to 3 percent and 11th grade from 13 percent to 5 percent.” That’s horrible. Seventy-eight percent of 10th graders at Rodriguez and Armijo High are at “below basic” or “far below basic” i...

Fairfield, CA August 18, 2011 Thuggery in a flash by Kelvin Wade Over the years, locally, we’ve seen several house parties spiral out of control and turn into brawls requiring many officers to respond. We’ve even passed an ordinance to deal with homeowners who let their parties get out of control. We hold people financially accountable for the police needed to respond to and contain the chaos. But what if the chaos is too sudden and too large for even our highly performing Fairfield Police Department? As I’ve written in my personal blog, these past several weeks have seen flash mobs of people rioting in various cities. Flash mobs are when people use social networking to arrange for a group to come together at an appointed place and time. In the past, people came together to perform a dance routine, song or stunt as a form of street theater. Lately, these mobs have been called together for the purpose of mayhem and looting. Philadelphia has seen hordes of thugs cal...

We need biologists not baristas Fairfield Daily Republic August 11, 2011 By Kelvin Wade School starts Monday for the Fairfield-Suisun School District. Are we giving them every chance to be the scientists and engineers of the future? Or are we turning out the next generation of baristas and burger-flippers? Last year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated 2.6 million jobs went unfulfilled. In the heart of the worst recession in most peoples’ memory, where millions were looking for work, millions of jobs sat unclaimed. How could this be? These jobs are in health care, aerospace, scientific labs and computers and require advanced education. While we’ve seen illegal immigrants demonized for taking jobs from Americans, here we have good-paying jobs that employers can’t find Americans qualified to take. So not only are we outsourcing manufacturing jobs, we’re importing people with advanced degrees from Asia, India and ot...

Special Commentary by Kelvin Wade “Take those…hoodies down…Pull your pants up and buy a belt ‘cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt. If you walk into somebody’s office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won’t hire you? They don’t hire you ‘cause you look like you’re crazy. You have damaged your own race.” ---Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter Philadelphia has seen several flash mobs of teen violence in recent weeks. Flash mobs are when people use social networking to arrange for a group to come together at an appointed place or time. In the past, people came together to perform a dance or song in public as a form of street theater. Lately, flash mobs are calling people together for violence and rioting. We’re seeing it in London, Israel and other countries and we’re seeing it in this country. ...

Governing at gunpoint no way to run country Fairfield Daily Republic August 4, 2011 By Kelvin Wade This is no way to govern a superpower. Many Democrats referred to the debt ceiling negotiations as Republican hostage taking and terrorism. I likened it to suicide bombers. But I was mistaken. Destroying the full faith and credit of the United States would be far more devastating to the nation and the global economy than a terrorist act. But what else do you call it when a minority of politicians has a temper tantrum and threatens to take the ball and go home? Last week, 51 local tea party groups in Ohio wrote Speaker John Boehner a letter warning him not to cave in on the debt limit negotiations. Some groups are ready to run a primary opponent against their own leader. Californians shouldn’t be surprised. We’ve dealt with this tyranny of the minority for years, where a handful of Republican politician...