politically persuasive?

Today is BIG day. Barack Obama will be our president soon. If you voted for him or not, this is an amazing day in US history. I'm so proud and excited. I'm ready for change.

I'm not one of those involved political people that recruits their friends to vote a certain way or spends time on the phone, email, blog trying to persuade votes this way or that. I firmly believe we all get to decide what we want. I don't want anyone pushing me. I won't push anyone else. So, now that the voting is over, I just have to say how grateful I am that Measure 58 and Measure 60 were shot down. Phew, I was worried, phew, I prayed and phew I sweated.

Measure 58 would limit the use of foreign language instruction in public schools to: 1 year for students in kindergarten to 4th grade. 1.5 years for 5th grade through 8th grade. 2 years for high school students. It would also prohibit ESL (English as a Second Language) teaching programs for longer than the mandated time.

my note: research shows that full mastery of a second language takes 5-7 years

Measure 60 states that teacher pay raises and job security shall be based on job performance. Pay raises for public school teachers shall be based upon each teacher’s classroom performance and not related or connected to his or her seniority. Note: "Classroom performance" and "most qualified" are not defined in the measure.

my note: had this measured passed it could have led to teacher pay being connected to standardized test scores, not student learning. It is widely known that standardized tests are poor determinants of student learning. And what if you have that one class that are behind in reading, writing and math when you get them, that are always sick or absent...

I feel so strongly about these two measures. I am in Graduate School for Education. I'm so grateful that Oregon put down these two measures. Thank You.

ballot information found from http://www.ballotpedia.org/