The editorial board recently questioned Santa Monica College’s decision to offer two-tier course pricing. Here, Martin Goldstein, associate professor of communications at SMC, defends the school’s decision. If you would like to write a full-length response to a recent Times article, editorial or Op-Ed and would like to participate in Blowback, here are our FAQs and submission policy.

As a teacher at Santa Monica College, my view of SMC offering  additional classes at a higher fee is necessarily shaped by my on-the-ground, in-the-trenches perspective. And that perspective says we should do it, and that students will want those classes, fill them up quickly, and be thankful for them.

Every semester for the last several years I have turned away as many students as I teach. Every semester I hear the pleas of students who can’t get classes they need to transfer and move on with their lives. Every semester I see the personal cost -- and can foresee the social cost -- because I know some of those people we are turning away are never coming back.

I believe those who oppose our additional classes are doing faulty math. They are comparing the few hundred dollars more in tuition per class -- saying that’s not “fair” -- while ignoring the much larger lost opportunity costs of not getting that class, not being able to transfer, not moving on with your life as you hope and plan. What’s the cost of that? 

Some of those we turn away will lose their way during that semester or year they have to wait, and will find the door of opportunity closing in on them. They have to earn a living, perhaps support a family during that time. Life happens, things get in the way, and the system seems to be playing a game of “bait and switch” with you, anyway, by promising a good public education -- then denying it to you when you want it and need it. Maybe it’s not worth it.

We at the community colleges live at the intersection of minimum wage and something better. We are the choice point, the fork in the road that turns you from high school graduate to someone with a chance of earning a decent living. Maybe an AA degree, maybe a BA, maybe retrained for a new career -- we make the difference that can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased income over the course of their lives. That’s our mission and we do it well -- when we can.

If we are underfunded, we can’t.  That’s the situation now. We’ve lost around 300,000 students out of the potential 2.9 million we should be serving. By turning them away, how much is that cost to society in income lost and taxes lost and quality of life diminished?

We know that it is a tragedy, and given that, why is it wrong to try to make it better?  Why is it wrong to give that opportunity to a few more? We now have the full assurance that nobody will be turned away because of cost with the recent $250,000 scholarship commitment, along with other grants and scholarships available. Yes, it’s different, but so is the world of education these days. But our mission is the same, and turning kids away if we don't have to is opposite to our mission. It's bad social policy and bad ethically.

And when someone waves the bloody flag of “privatization,” as doubtless they will, let me state clearly that these classes will be taught in the same public classrooms I teach in now, by the same publicly employed teachers who are teaching there now -- unionized and professional -- offering the same quality public education we have always offered at SMC.

People know a good deal when they see it, and whatever they cost in dollars, the lost opportunity costs of not getting those classes is incomparably greater. If we offer them, they will come, fill the classes, and be grateful for the chance to move on with their lives.

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-- Martin Goldstein

Photo: Santa Monica College students are shown celebrating Earth Day with the Eco Action Club in 2010. Credit: Los Angeles Times

The secretary of state gave proponents of Gov. Jerry Brown's revised tax proposal the green light Monday to begin collecting the 807,615 signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot. The same day, supporters of a rival tax initiative started airing a TV commercial touting their proposal as the only one that sends more funding straight to schools.

Game on!

The ad comes from Our Children, Our Future, an organization backed by the California PTA and Molly Munger, a wealthy civil rights attorney. OCOF's initiative would increase the state's personal income tax rate by 0.4 percentage points (for the lowest taxable income bracket) to 2.2 percentage points (for the highest) through 2024.

The proposal is a potential thorn in the side of Brown, who has been maneuvering to rid the ballot of rival income tax proposals. Brown revised his initiative last week to persuade the California Federation of Teachers to drop efforts to qualify its own proposal, which called for a surtax on millionaires to raise billions of dollars for education.

Munger and the PTA, who have until July 16 to collect 504,760 signatures from registered voters, seem to be doubling down, not backing out. OCOF spokesman Addisu Demissie said the group started airing ads in Los Angeles and the Bay Area on Monday to support the signature drive; he declined to say how many John Hancocks the group had collected thus far.

Although the group's commercial wouldn't make the Negative Advertising Hall of Fame, it portends just the sort of contest that Brown had hoped to avoid. According to several observers, polls show that support for a tax increase is strongest if the revenue is used solely to improve California schools. The OCOF commercial doesn't call out Brown's initiative by name, but it gives voters a reason not to support it -- even if they believe taxes are too low.

The ad also amounts to a sort of political jujutsu. From a budgetary perspective, a strongpoint of Brown's initiative is that it would make more money available for a variety of programs in addition to schools. But many voters don't trust Sacramento to spend money responsibly -- for good reason. That's why there's more support for a measure that would be dedicated to a specific, widely shared goal -- improving schools -- than for a measure to improve schools and narrow the state's budget gap.

Granted, the OCOF initiative isn't entirely pure on that score either. In the first four years, 40% of the revenue would be used to pay down the debt on school bonds and other state securities, which would help narrow the budget gap or free up money for other programs. After that, all of the additional tax money raised by the initiative would be dedicated to public schools and preschool programs. The initiative also dictates that the new tax dollars be additional revenue for education, not replacements for the funds already provided by state law.

In case you missed it on TV, here's the OCOF ad, courtesy of YouTube:

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--Jon Healey

Photo: An ad from Our Children, Our Future. Credit: YouTube.com

The predictable plea in just about any tax campaign -- or for that matter, ad campaigns to get us to buy a small insurance plan, or some appliances -- is, "It's less money than your afternoon coffee." But like anything else, enough afternoon coffees add up to some real money.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified school board will hold a public hearing on a new parcel tax measure to raise $255 million a year, which is less than the state has been cutting from the district's budget. To get that amount, the voters would have to approve by a two-thirds majority a levy of $298 on each real estate parcel.

No sooner had the push been officially announced last week than Supt. John Deasy was breaking it down to what it would mean in smaller bites -- less than $25 a month. No one's gotten to the less-than-your-afternoon-coffee point yet, or the considerably-less-than-a-single-dinner-out-each-month point either, but it's surely only a matter of time.

All of this is absolutely true, but the question is whether this sort of breakdown is as effective as it used to be. The last few years have forced a lot of people to do away with a lot of niceties in life in order to pay down debts or overcome a period of unemployment. That one dinner out each month might be all they allow themselves, if they're still doing that. And seemingly every blogged bit of financial wisdom over the last year or two has started out with the folly of buying an afternoon coffee when you can make it at home for pennies.

People are trying to save for their retirements and for a rainy day; they've been told repeatedly about how they don't save enough, and there are signs that families are trying to improve on this score. The schools might be able to lay a claim on that extra almost-dollar a day, but for many, the rise in gasoline prices has already wiped it out.

None of this is to say that raising money for education isn't one of the finest things a society can do for itself and its children. It's just a question of whether the old sales pitches work, especially when they imply that people have adequate money and are simply being selfish or wrongheaded in the way they spend it. That might be more turnoff than incentive to vote yes.

The price of the tax isn't small. It's nearly $1,500 over the five years that it would be in effect. That's more than a few dinners -- for most voters, anyway.

Maybe a better message for our time is to acknowledge that this is a significant chunk of money but that the schools wouldn't be asking for it if they didn't need it in fairly desperate ways: to keep adult ed so illiterate adults can learn to read or new immigrants can learn the language of their adopted country, or to maintain preschool so children can enter kindergarten knowing some of those basics -- colors, letters, how to behave in a classroom -- that will be crucial to their academic success.

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--Karin Klein

Photo: LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy is seen during a regular meeting of the Los Angeles School Board on Feb. 7, 2012. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

It's not often you can say that someone saved the world -- and mean it literally.

But that's the case with F. Sherwood Rowland. The UC Irvine chemist, who died Saturday at 85, was one of three scientists who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry, The Times reported, for their work "explaining how chlorofluorocarbons, ubiquitous substances once used in an array of products from spray deodorant to industrial solvents, could destroy the ozone layer, the protective atmospheric blanket that screens out many of the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays."

In hindsight, it seems straightforward: Bad stuff was eating away a vital part of Earth's environment. So get rid of it.

But it wasn't so simple in 1974, when Rowland and fellow scientist Mario Molina published their concerns in the journal Nature.

As The Times says, the findings "were met with scorn by the chemical industry and even by many scholars. For a decade, Rowland and Molina persevered to prove their hypothesis, publishing numerous scientific papers and speaking to sometimes hostile audiences at scientific conferences. It took almost 15 years for the international scientific community and chemical industry to accept the pair's findings."

Hmmm, starting to remind you of a little something called "climate change," is it?

But here's something of a vital difference between the ozone debate and the current climate change one:

Manufacturers began to phase out chlorofluorocarbons in the late 1980s, prompted by the discovery of an ozone "hole" over Antarctica that formed each winter in response to weather conditions and the falling worldwide levels of ozone. The Montreal Protocol, a landmark international agreement to phase out CFC products, was signed by the United States and other nations in 1987.

The protocol was proof that nations could unite to address common environmental threats, Rowland contended. "People have worked together to solve the problem," he said.

Rowland was right then.  Nations did unite to address a common environmental threat.

But have we taken that lesson to heart?  Will we accept the scientific consensus on climate change and work together to save the planet?   

Or will it continue to be a political football, at least in the United States, where too many politicians are opting for short-term partisan gains at the risk of the planet's future?

Donald Blake, a colleague of Rowland’s at UC Irvine, told The Times that Rowland considered the phase-out of CFCs his greatest achievement.

It would be a shame if Rowland won the ozone battle -- but the rest of us lost the war for Earth’s survival.

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Photo: F. Sherwood Rowland, shown in his UC Irvine lab.  Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Unified School District appears poised to ask voters for a $298-a-year parcel tax. Parcel taxes are assessed on property owners and are the same regardless of the value of the land.

In a Friday press release, the district announced that the school board will consider at its meeting Tuesday whether to place the tax on the November ballot -- which pretty much means, expect to see it on the November ballot.

Two years ago, voters were unwilling to pass a much smaller parcel tax of just under $100 a year. These require a two-thirds majority -- not a common way for new taxes to go. And The Times' editorial board recommended a "no" vote, criticizing the board for not including a citizens oversight committee in the proposal, among other things.

The details aren't in yet on what this proposal would call for in the way of oversight. But certainly the schools are in much worse shape financially than they were a couple of years ago, and the economy is in somewhat better shape. Yet $300 a year isn't an insignificant sum for many families.

Would you vote for it?

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--Karin Klein

Photo: John Deasy, Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

When it comes to raising achievement in public schools, theories abound. Not just theories. Absolute certitude. If only schools were smaller, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation used to think, before it pushed for and got such schools throughout the nation, and then its own studies found otherwise. If only we made all students take college-prep courses, others maintain, or if we linked teacher evaluations to their students' scores.

One of the more popular if-onlys, because it certainly makes sense, has been that if only we provided teachers with incentives, teachers would be more likely to stay at their schools and scores would rise. Not just extra pay for performance, but with more training, intensive mentoring and career paths that allow them to be promoted without becoming an administrator.

Chicago was among many school districts to try that out with its TAP program (Teacher Advancement Program), which it piloted in several schools. Now, a gold-standard study by the think tank Mathematica Policy Research finds that in its first four years, TAP did nothing for student achievement. It had a modest though inconsistent effect on teacher retention: 67% stayed for three years, as opposed to the 56% in schools without such a program.

This doesn't necessarily mean that teacher incentives can't work. The pay incentives for performance were not very large in the Chicago schools, averaging a little more than $1,000. Maybe the program just needs more time to show its stuff. Or maybe it needs some tweaking. At this point, though, it's just another silver-bullet theory that was far from hitting the mark.

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-- Karin Klein

Photo: Javier Castillo, then a junior at Francis Polytechnic Senior High, attends an AP class. Credit: Katie Falkenberg / For The Times / May 18, 2011

Catherine Atkin, president of Preschool California, responds to The Times' Feb. 29 editorial, "California to some kids: No." Atkin's response is on behalf of the Save Kindergarten Coalition of school districts, superintendents, educators, parents, business and civic leaders and groups supporting full access to kindergarten for all children this fall. If you would like to write a full-length response to a recent Times article, editorial or Op-Ed and would like to participate in Blowback, here are our FAQs and submission policy.

The Times' editorial board got it right that many children would benefit from transitional kindergarten, a developmentally-appropriate grade specifically designed to serve younger students who are unprepared for today's more academically advanced kindergarten.

Research shows that transitional kindergarten results in greater academic achievement, higher graduation rates and better jobs, and saves schools money by reducing the number of students entering special education and being held back a grade.

The Times got it wrong, however, about the governor's proposal to eliminate transitional kindergarten resulting in cost savings.

Cutting transitional kindergarten will save little to no money. Having already cut in half their estimates of the alleged cost savings, the governor's own staff doesn't even know how much it may or may not save. Nor do they propose to apply these supposed savings to the state deficit. This is because school districts have a strong financial incentive to provide transitional kindergarten for all students to avoid these additional cuts. That's why more than 100 districts have already come out and said they are enrolling children in transitional kindergarten despite the governor's proposal. 

Under current law, however, transitional kindergarten doesn't cost any new dollars until 2025. It doesn't expand the number of students enrolled in schools. It is simply a wiser way to spend existing funds in a more economical and efficient way to get our youngest students off to a smart start.

Cutting transitional kindergarten would be more costly in both the short and long term because it would result in more students being placed in special education, being held back or dropping out of school.

The Times also got it wrong by claiming that children will be more prepared for kindergarten merely by waiting an extra year.

Research by Deborah Stipek and others clearly shows that simply moving kindergarten entry dates back impaired students' academic performance, especially for low-income students. Being in school for a year, even in a classroom that is not developmentally appropriate, is still better than no school at all. 

What kind of a California are we creating if the Brown administration's proposal to eliminate transitional kindergarten goes forward? The proposal could deny 125,000 children their right to public school, and it is creating chaos and confusion throughout the state.

Already, some school districts are moving forward with implementation, while others are on hold. Next year we could see a child in the Los Angeles Unified School District having access to transitional kindergarten while another child in Inglewood or Compton would not. That's like offering second grade to some students but not to others. This would further widen the achievement gap and erode equal opportunity for success in school.    

Superintendents throughout the state, who are constantly asked to do more with less, are moving forward with transitional kindergarten registration because they recognize it as a wise investment. Parents, educators, business and law enforcement leaders also oppose the Brown administration's proposal.  

Although the future of transitional kindergarten in some school districts is uncertain, what is certain is that cutting transitional kindergarten is a shortsighted mistake that California can't afford.

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--Catherine Atkin

Photo: Shanette Song tells about her son's experience with learning and improving at transitional kindergarten at George Washington Carver elementary on Feb. 7. In the foreground is a poster showing the percentage of children who will be affected by Governor Brown's cutbacks. Credit: Los Angeles Times

The pundits have spoken: Rick Santorum lost Wednesday's debate. But the aspect of his performance cited by his detractors -- his defense of insider-ish political virtues like party loyalty and horse-trading -- made him seem more presidential to me.

The rap against Santorum has been that he's an unguided missile. (Well, that's one rap; another is that he's a Satan-obsessed culture warrior.) But successful politicians, including successful presidents, are not lone rangers. They must cooperate, and compromise, with other politicians to achieve their ends, just as they must be willing -- as President Lyndon B. Johnson was in twisting arms in Congress on civil rights -- to press other politicians to subordinate their own views as part of a larger alliance.

Consider Santorum's admission at the debate that he voted for George W. Bush's signature No Child Left Behind initiative even though he had doubts about it. "I have to admit, I voted for that," Santorum said. "It was against the principles I believed in, but, you know, when you're part of the team, sometimes you take one for the team, for the leader, and I made a mistake." When the audience booed, Santorum pleaded: "You know, politics is a team sport, folks."  And he's right.

Santorum also took heat from Mitt Romney for having endorsed his fellow Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter for reelection over conservative Pat Toomey. Santorum's explanation, as Romney accurately described it, was "tortuous": The conservative Santorum endorsed the moderate Specter in exchange for assurances from Specter that, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he would support Bush's Supreme Court nominees.

Was the approval of John Roberts and Sam Alito an acceptable trade-off from a conservative perspective for Specter's support of Obama's health care legislation? Perhaps not, but the trading itself is what politicians (including presidents) do. If Romney is elected president he'll be doing some trading, too, if he hopes to be successful.

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COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS: Presidential Election 2012

 -- Michael McGough

Credit: Don Emmert / AFP/Getty Images

America, it's time for a little presidential poker. Republicans and Democrats need to go "all in" on Rick Santorum vs. President Obama.

Yep, it's "put up or shut up" time for all you political Texas hold 'em folks out there.

Now, the Obama bet you probably understand. After all, he's the incumbent, and he's running unopposed in the Democratic Party.

But why Santorum? After all, he's not only anathema to Democrats, it's not clear whether most Republicans favor him over Mitt Romney (not to mention Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul).

For the good of the country, though, the GOP needs to run Santorum.

Wait, wait, hold the comments, angry or otherwise. I didn't say "Santorum would be good for the country."  If you're asking me personally, well, it's a secret ballot, but no, I wouldn't put my ink spot next to "Rick Santorum."

But I'm also sick and tired of the partisan divide. It's time to call everyone's bluff.

Conservatives maintain that Obama and the Democrats are destroying the country; that we need to return to Christian values, to exceptionalism, to less government, less regulation, less spending and less taxation.

Sure, Romney touts all that too.  But he just wants the Republican nomination. With that secured, he'll pivot to the center, and pretty soon you'll never know he said half the stuff he did to get the GOP nod. With an Obama-Romney clash, should Romney lose, plenty of Republicans would complain that he wasn't a true-enough conservative.

Santorum, on the other hand, is nothing if not a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. He might pivot to the center too, but he's so far right that he can't even see the center at this point. With an Obama-Santorum battle, we'd be able to settle the liberal vs. conservative debate that's stifling government. 

And here's where the "all in" part happens.

If Santorum wins, liberals should acknowledge that the country is on the wrong path. America doesn't want gay marriage, or legal abortion, or government healthcare, or environmental protections. It wants to slash the size of government and reduce or eliminate entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. It wants religion back in public life; it wants the government out of schools. It wants to spend big on defense; it wants to back Israel no matter what. 

However, if Obama wins, all those conservative Republicans would have to acknowledge that they were wrong. That they're not America's voice. That America is OK with gay marriage and a woman's right to choose; it wants affordable healthcare for all, and a safety net that includes Medicare and Social Security.  It agrees with the separation of church and state and believes that while generating good-paying jobs is important, so is protecting the environment. It doesn't want a 1% and a 99% but a 100% that favors social and economic justice for all.

So after election day, that's it. Someone rakes in all the chips. 

If it's Santorum, then Republicans in Congress, the tea partyers and the Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck/Sean Hannity crowd can crow all the way to the inauguration and beyond.

But if it's Obama, those same folks need to face reality. They need to stop the scorched-earth warfare and let him lead.

And we can go back to the old days, when elections mattered.

Did someone say "deal"?

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Illustration by Wes Bausmith / Los Angeles Times

StudentsFirst chief Michelle Rhee is a lightning-rod figure in educational reform, and I talked to her at length for my ''Patt Morrison Asks'' column. Her goal of a tough-love, top-to-bottom overhaul of public schools doesn't stop in the classroom or with teachers; even how we reward our children is in need of a makeover, she told me.

As an example, her own daughters, she says in a radio commentary, "suck" at soccer, yet they have so many medals and ribbons, "you'd think I was raising the next Mia Hamm."

And that is not, to her mind, a good thing:

The practice of applauding kids for taking part and trying their best, whatever the results -- you are concerned that we overpraise kids.

I think it's a huge problem. We don't want to make kids feel bad. I tell the soccer story: One of the soccer leagues my kid was in wanted to stop keeping score because they didn't want the kids on the losing team to feel bad. That's so ridiculous. Life is about sometimes losing and being able to tough it out, and if you're not as good, you know you've got to put in the hard work to get better. If we're creating this cocoon for kids where they think that if they just try their best, we can tell them that's sufficient -- that is doing a disservice to kids in the long run.

Shouldn't you also hold the soccer coach responsible, the way you'd hold the teacher responsible?

Saying "we're not going to keep score" is the same as saying "we're not going to look at student achievement levels." A coach's win-loss record is the basis on which [the coach] is paid. If you were to say, "We're going to stop keeping score; we're going to evaluate coaches on how they're inspiring team spirit" -- are you kidding me? People would go ballistic!

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Photo: Michelle Rhee is seen at Good Housekeeping's 'Shine On' Women Making History theatrical event at Radio City Music Hall on April 12, 2011 in New York. Credit: Evan Agostini / AP Photo