A little bit about a lot of things:

• Disappointing to say the least.....the annual accountability “report cards” for Newman-Crows Landing schools certainly raised some major concerns.

Yolo was the only school site to show a gain in its API, which measures growth in academic achievement. Two other schools, Hunt and Orestimba, saw not only significant decreases in their overall API score but sharp dips in the performance of their English learners.

The “achievement gap” between English-proficient students and English language learners continues to be an issue for the district.....a challenge which school districts across California have yet to solve.

Certainly one can sift through the mounds of data for each school in our communities to find both success stories and problem areas. The overall scores, however, reflect the general trend and measuring stick for a school’s academic performance from one year to the next.

Hopefully, this year’s results will prove to be a one-year aberration and everybody will be back on track.

School officials, to their credit, are making no excuses and have pledged to take a hard, honest look at what’s working and what’s not.

While the student achievement scores reflect a “snapshot” in time, based on results from a single test, they are also the measure by which communities judge their schools.

We love sharing and celebrating the success stories of our schools; by the same token, there are other times when the results are simply not what we would like them to be.

I believe there is a general agreement among the NCLUSD and the community that many of this year’s results were not acceptable.

Hopefully next year’s numbers tell a different story.

• One of the most memorable parts of the trip my father and I took to Washington, D.C., this summer was our tour of the White House.

While not as large or opulent as either of us envisioned, visiting the White House proved to be a powerful experience.

Strolling through rooms where world leaders gathered, viewing the presidential portraits which adorn the walls (my favorites were those of George Washington and John F. Kennedy) and realizing that we were touring areas still very much used by the First Family, one couldn’t help but feel the sense of power and history within those walls.

Who knows, President Bush could have been taking a quick catnap upstairs while we were wandering through the main floor......I think he returned from the Olympics sometime during the day of our visit.

Seeing Washington and visiting places such as the White House and U.S. Capitol gave me a new perspective on this year’s Presidential Election.

I am doing my best to picture the candidates on the two major party tickets as the occupants of our nation’s home on Pennsylvania Avenue.

I’m not sure John McCain is much different than the current White House resident, and the prospect of President Palin (gulp!) calling the place home scares me. Wonderful woman, I’m sure, and certainly a great story, but is she really ready to be the leader of the free world?

At the same time, I am increasingly unimpressed with Barack Obama. If the polls are any indication, the same can be said of a great many other voters as well. I just can’t see myself voting for him. Can’t really say that I know enough about his running mate, Joe Biden, to have a feeling of whether I would be comfortable with the idea of him stepping into presidential shoes.

We’re going to send either Obama or McCain to the White House in a few weeks, and I have strong misgivings about both.

The reality is that we’re going to elect one of the two, and I know our responsibility as voters is to select the candidate we feel is best suited for the job, but given the options this year I’m tempted to cast my vote for “other.”

• Good news is more welcome than ever at Gustine High, which has suffered through more than its fair share of negative publicity in recent years.

Last week brought a double dose of the positive for GHS, which hopefully bodes well for the year to come.

The varsity football Redskins ushered in Coach Manuel Bettencourt’s coaching tenure with a solid win over visiting Riverbank Friday before a large and enthusiastic crowd of hometown fans.

The win ended a 19-game losing streak dating back to the season opener two autumns ago, giving players, coaches and fans alike reason to celebrate.

In the more important scholastic arena, we were pleased to report a 30-point API gain for Gustine High students in last week’s edition of the Press-Standard.

Well done.....

• We’ll see if California’s state budget standoff is approved by the time this paper hits the street, or if the political wrangling continues in Sacramento.

The budget proposal earlier this week would hit many working class folks and businesses squarely in the pocketbook by increasing state payroll tax witholding for some workers (the money would be refunded, in theory, in 2010) and restricting business write-offs for two years (also with the idea that business could recoup those benefits later).

In a large-scale sort of way, the proposal reminds me a bit of a teenager wanting an advance on his allowance.