So I was boarding my train at the North Hollywood station today around 9am. I sat down, while the train was parked, and could see two Sheriffs questioning a baggy pants wearing black man on a platform bench. They wanted to see his ticket. The man fumbled through his backpack, with deliberate slowness, and finally produced something that did not seem to satisfy law enforcement. So they handcuffed him.
At the same time, in my train car, a vagrant had his feet up on the seat. An MTA employee walked up to him and said loudly, “Sir, get your feet off the seat! Or I will throw you off the train!” When the man refused, the MTA clerk pulled the brake of the train, and summoned a deputy into the car. The deputy spoke to the vagrant and the man complied. Then the clerk said to the vagrant, “I’m putting you on Camera #25 so rest assured that you are being watched! Next time I ask you to take your feet off the seat, you had better listen!”
While it’s reassuring to see some law enforcement return to the MTA after months of watching vandalism rise, I now observe how rudely the officials treat the riding public. These are the mostly minority riders of LA public transit. They are spoken to, like misbehaving children, with a sneering contempt. But I respect the challenges of patrolling this system and the frustration of seeing how people behave. Tough love they call it, right?
But now I’m on the other side. I ride to work along with Maria, Carlos, Jose and Shewanna. We are the braceros.
I see now how a badge sees them.
Here in Van Nuys 
Have you ever been yelled at by the cops for having your feet all up on the seats or for fare evasions?
No?
Now is that because you’re white? Or because you’re able to follow the numbingly simple rules of the train?
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Andrew,
I totally agree with “anonymous” here. Not paying for public transit, putting your feet up on seats on buses and trains, littering, are all a way to say “Fuck you” to “The Man.” It is total anarchy… I believe that preventing important crime starts with the prevention of petty crime. Fine or arrest all of the culprits, despite the colour of their skin.
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Again, “underfunded?”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States spent an average of $8,701 per pupil to educate its children in 2005, the Census Bureau said on Thursday, with some states paying more than twice as much per student as others.
New York was the biggest spender on education, at $14,119 per student, with New Jersey second at $13,800 and Washington, D.C., third at $12,979, the Census Bureau said.
Students in northeastern and northern states tend to perform better on standardized tests than students in southern and southwestern states. But experts say the correlation between spending and testing performance is not strong.
It’s not necessarily so that states with higher spending have higher test scores,” said Tom Loveless, an education policy expert at the Brookings Institution think tank.
He said Washington, D.C., has among the highest spending in the country but its students have among the lowest scores on standardized tests, while some states like Montana with relatively low spending have fairly high performance on tests.
Loveless said two areas where education spending might make a difference were in teacher salaries and small class sizes for first graders. But overall, the relationship between spending on education and test performance was not strong, he said.
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Measure R is a school bond measure that authorizes LAUSD to issue $3.87 Billion in bonds to continue repair/upgrade of aging classrooms and build neighborhood schools. The measure was passed in March 2004 by 63% of voters
Proposition BB is a school bond measure that authorizes LAUSD to use $2.4 billion in bonds for the construction of new schools and the repair and modernization of existing schools through the district to improve local schools and relieve classroom overcrowding. The ballot measure was approved in April 1997 by 71% of voters.
Measure K is a school bond measure that authorizes LAUSD to issue $3.35 billion in bonds for repair and renovation of existing schools and to build neighborhood schools to improve local schools and relieve classroom overcrowding. The measure was passed in November 2002 by 64% of voters.
Measure Y is a school bond measure that authorizes LAUSD to issue $3.985 billion in bonds to continue repair/upgrade of aging classrooms and to build new neighborhood schools. The measure was passed in November 2005 by 66% of the voters.
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Yes, I can see how “overfunded” our schools in LA are when I pass those 50 year old trailers used as classrooms around the city.
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Anonymous says, “…what’s true of Newark probably is true of many other cities,”
And then anonymous quotes, “75 percent above the national average”
Anonymous has a small problem with math.
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Throw in poor underfunded schools
“Underfunded?”
I found the following from an East Coast publication. And what’s true of Newark probably is true of many other cities, and their school districts, across the country, LA included:
Fifty years ago Newark’s population was 460,000. Now it is 284,000 — up about 10,000 in five years — of which 54 percent are black and 33 percent are Latino. In 1995 the state took over the school system, in which principalships were being sold and so much of schools’ budgets went for the salaries of unionized teachers that some classrooms lacked even chalk.
Today, per-pupil spending tops $17,000, which is 75 percent above the national average and a (redundant) refutation of the public education lobby’s not disinterested judgment that in primary and secondary education, cognitive outputs correlate with financial inputs. Seventy percent of Newark’s 11th-graders flunk the state’s math test. Booker says that under the previous mayor’s administration, every elected official sent his or her children to private schools.
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Well, I’m a certified liberal, and I support Israel.
Stereotypes, by any side, are invidious.
I’m with Andrew on this one.
Dan J.
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Wow–what assumptions the first anonymous commentator makes. Minorities aren’t parented well? Is that all minorities or are you just referring to some? The majority of fare jumpers here in good old white bread Salt Lake City are white meth addicts. Are all white people badly parented then?
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Oh and one more thing about law enforcement. Those “liberals” who despise the Iraq war also realize that spending $442 billion to “fight terror” while underfunding the police at home, is the CHIEF REASON why we have crime here in LA. Throw in poor underfunded schools, underfunded health care and overfunded Halliburton……and you will have more crime in America.
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Guess what? I agree with you about law enforcement. We need more of it. I’m commenting on how it’s administered.
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Do you try and ride the train without a ticket? Do you put your feet up on the seats?
If so you should expect the same treatment. LA is under-policed and under-enforced. It’s a fricking miracle the ticket-jumper was arrested.
Unless public safety slams down hard on the least infractions, you get a total anarchy. Punks, thugs, hard boys, stick-up men, vagrants, and others prey on the weak and the helpless. In order to deter them public safety has to be tough.
I can guarantee you that train-riding liberals will not come to the aid of Maria as some hard boy gangsta rapes her. With his crew in tow. Because they’d get shot dead. The only way to stop that is aggressive and tough enforcement.
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The connection is that when you support israel, you are being intelligent, i mean, how can anyone defend the other side in the matter, when that side is exporting violence to the west
Only so called “liberals” support the arab point of view on the matter.
You come across as some big liberal in the MTA thing like the cops are in the wrong. Friggin A, ride the train, pay for it, and act normal
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Explain the connection between supporting Israel and talking about how it feels to ride the MTA? I don’t understand the connection.
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Please. Riding a train is not a time to put a chip on your racial shoulder. I take my kids on the redline and scold them to sit down normally. Just because these minorities were not parented the same, and just because the evil white man enslaved, what, their great great great grandparents, is no reason to act worse than my friggin five year old. you are not liberal stupid on israel, dont do it here.
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