Have you ever wondered why the California Teachers Association (CTA) has such an impact on politics in our state? It isn't because everyone loves teachers. It is because they outspend every other large campaign contributor by at least 100%. The California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) released a report identifying the 15 groups that spent more than $1B on political influence in the last 10 years. As you might guess, CTA is #1 on that list. They've spend nearly double what their nearest competitor, the California State Council of Service Employees, which is California's SEIU affiliate has spent. Here is the list from the report.

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Living here in Mendocino County, I am much more familiar with the marijuana industry than I would care to be. Not only do we live with the consequences of our state's effort to allow the medicinal use of pot, but our own county government has long taken a "don't ask, don't tell" approach since it represents a significant portion of our rural county's economy.

Many in my town favor legalization and argue that recreational use of marijuana is safer than alcohol.

It was nice to see this Pajama's Media column providing another view on the impact of marijuana use.

There’s no question that making drugs illegal creates serious problems for our criminal justice system. It clogs the courts, it corrupts police officers and government officials, and it funds some really sleazy people. All of this is true — but it turns out that there are some substantial social costs on the other side that simply don’t get any attention. While it may sound like I have been watching Reefer Madness (1936) – a tragically overwrought portrayal of the dangers of marijuana — it turns out that mental illness is one of those social costs.

A surprising number of scholarly studies in the last 25 years have demonstrated that marijuana use seems to cause an increase in psychoses such as schizophrenia, and somewhat less dramatic mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder.

Let me emphasize: This isn’t just correlation analysis — finding that people with a current mental illness are disproportionately potheads. I am well aware that people with significant mental illness problems tend to “self-medicate” using various psychoactive drugs (including alcohol). No, these are longitudinal studies that show the marijuana use comes first, with the mental illness later in life.

The first of these, involving Swedish conscripts, was published in the Lancet in 1987. Those who had used marijuana heavily by age 18 were six times more likely to develop schizophrenia. A British medical journal paper published in 2002 performed a longitudinal study in New Zealand and found that:

Firstly, cannabis use is associated with an increased risk of experiencing schizophrenia symptoms, even after psychotic symptoms preceding the onset of cannabis use are controlled for. … Secondly, early cannabis use (by age 15) confers greater risk for schizophrenia outcomes than later cannabis use (by age 18). The youngest cannabis users may be most at risk because their cannabis use becomes longstanding.

This paper, from the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2004, should also make you a bit concerned. From the abstract:

On an individual level, cannabis use confers an overall twofold increase in the relative risk for later schizophrenia. At the population level, elimination of cannabis use would reduce the incidence of schizophrenia by approximately 8%, assuming a causal relationship. Cannabis use appears to be neither a sufficient nor a necessary cause for psychosis. It is a component cause, part of a complex constellation of factors leading to psychosis.

I feel it is my duty as an ultra-conservative nut job to praise the President when he does something with which I can agree. I was pleased to see this Huffington Post story (Yes, I'm linking to the Huffington Post) about the President making some efforts to encourage the construction of new nuclear power plants.

More than $8 billion in new federal loan guarantees to build two nuclear reactors in Georgia could be the first step toward a nuclear renaissance in the United States, three decades after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident halted all new reactor orders.

With the nuclear industry poised to begin construction of at least a half dozen plants over the next decade, President Barack Obama announced the first loan guarantees Tuesday, casting them as both economically essential and politically attractive. He called nuclear power a key part of comprehensive energy legislation that assigns a cost to the carbon pollution of fossil fuels, giving utility companies more incentive to turn to cleaner nuclear fuel.

"This is only the beginning," Obama said in designating the new federal financial backing for a pair of reactors in Burke County, Ga., to be built by Atlanta-based Southern Co. Obama's budget would triple – to $54.5 billion – loan guarantees available for new nuclear construction.

I couldn't help but laugh when I read this newsletter from the California School Board Assocation's (CSBA) President. It speaks of something that happened during Secretary Duncan's speech at the National School Board Association (NSBA) annual leadership conference .

A prime example occurred during the Q&A following his speech, when he received a question from a board member who wanted to know if Mr. Duncan could name an example of a failing school district that should be taken over. “That’s easy,” Duncan said, “Detroit!” That was all well and good, except for the fact that NSBA’s President-Elect, Earl Rickman, is from that area, and was sitting right there on the stage. Needless to say, the statement didn’t go over too well with him.

This just cracked me up. I had this visual in my mind of the expression on Mr. Rickman's face during all of this. As I see it, one of two things happened here.

First, it is possible that Secretary Duncan knew precisely where Mr. Rickman was from and because he felt strongly that Detroit Schools deserve to be taken over, he used it as the example. If that's the case, it demonstrates that he's not afraid to say what needs to be said.

Second, it is possible that Secretary Duncan had no idea that one of the NSBA officers sitting on the stand was from Detroit and thus he was caught off guard by the question and the reaction from Mr. Rickman was completely unexpected. If that's the case, then it is just one of those funny coincidences that happens.

One of my co-workers ran into a similar experience when they were planning on using a school as an example of poor performance, only to find out that someone from that school was involved in the event. They quickly picked another school to serve as a bad example.

If it was the first situation, I'd love to shake Secretary Duncan's hand. If it was the second, I wish I could have seen his face when he learned he'd just suggested taking over the school district of NSBA's President-Elect. Read the rest of this post!

In general, I think Ruben Navarrette from the San Diego Union-Tribune gets it right when it comes to education issues. There are lots of other places where we disagree, but on education, I think he does a great job. This column from Sunday is a great example. Ruben discusses how the bright start by President Obama on education reform issues has been dimmed by some recent comments by him and his minions.

Give Obama credit for what he got right. Somewhere along the line, perhaps during his stint as a community organizer, he figured out the three great truths about our mediocre public schools: They’re plagued by low expectations; they exist for the benefit of the adults who work there, not the students; and many teachers will resist, with every fiber of their being, taking responsibility for what students are learning because they know it wouldn’t reflect well on them.

Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative, which would evaluate teachers based on student performance and reward those states and school districts that practice innovative approaches to educating students, is a major step in the right direction.

Yet, unfortunately – in light of some of his recent public statements and his administration’s plans to water down the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind education reform law – it’s clear that Obama still has a lot to learn about what’s broken in our public schools and how to fix it.