Long, who previously served as Riverside County schools superintendent, may have more influence as Dave Long and Associates. His new firm already has landed at least one big client: the California School Boards Association.

The consulting firm will work with CSBA on a plan to help its members as they work to close achievement gaps among various groups of students, according to an item posted on the organization's Web site.

CSBA's executive director, Scott Plotkin, set high expectations for Long, whose 40 years of experience also includes serving as superintendent of the Lake Elsinore and Banning school districts.

"His decades of experience in public education, both in California and elsewhere, will be an enormous asset as we bolster our ongoing efforts to help governance teams close the achievement gaps in California schools," Plotkin said in the article.

-- Shirin Parsavand
sparsavand@PE.com

Those who want an up-close look at a presidential candidate still have their chance though, and this time it won't cost them anything.

Consumer activist Ralph Nader, the Peace and Freedom Party nominee for president, will take part in a vigil against the possibility of a war with Iran on Saturday next to Riverside's Fairmount Park.

Nader will speak briefly before answering questions from vigil participants, said Kevin Akin of Riverside, state chairman of the Peace and Freedom Party. Nader's running mate, Matt Gonzalez of San Francisco, will accompany him.

The vigil will last from 11 a.m. to noon. Participants will hold signs along Market Street southeast of the 60 Freeway by the northeast entrance to Fairmount Park, near the National Guard Armory. The Riverside County Central Committee of the Peace and Freedom Party is sponsoring the vigil.

-- Shirin Parsavand
sparsavand@PE.com

Visiting the Green Tech Expo in Universal City on Thursday, Gov. Schwarzenegger and George Schultz, the former U.S. secretary of state and sometimes adviser to the governor, checked out Phoenix Motorcars' SUT, a sport utility truck.

"It's totally electric," Rosario Marin, Schwarzenegger's consumer affairs secretary, told him, according to a pool report of the tour. "And it's made in Ontario."

"Canada?" the governor asked. The vehicle won't be ready until next year at the earliest. Schultz could own one of the first.

"I want to buy one of those when it's ready," Schultz said.

The governor, meanwhile, bragged on his Hummer that was converted to run on diesel and vegetable oil. It was on display at the expo alongside the newer vehicles.

"I just drive it into any restaurant and get the oil, and it drives this car," he said. "Go to a restaurant, they give you a can, pour it in and you drive off. It's the most unbelievable thing."

— Shirin Parsavand
sparsavand@PE.com

Long said at the small high school he attended in Iowa, everyone took home economics, including him. He's put the cooking skills he learned there to use, especially since becoming education secretary in 2007. He now lives alone four nights a week in Sacramento, while his wife, an elementary school principal in Corona, stays at their home in Canyon Lake.

"My home economics teacher told me, for guys this course is called survival skills. ... These days, I agree," he said, according to an account posted recently by Dameron Communications, a Southern California public relations firm.

Long spoke in late June to teachers in the field now known as home economics careers and technology. The teachers came to the Riverside Marriott to learn about careers in the hotel and tourism industry by watching workers as they mixed drinks and made reservations.

— Shirin Parsavand
sparsavand@PE.com

Right now, just over half of California's eighth-graders take algebra, while the rest wait until high school.

But California's math standards say algebra should be taught in eighth grade, and federal officials want the state to address the mismatch between the standards and the state's eighth-grade math test.

Schwarzenegger wants the State Board of Education, which he appoints, to make the state's Algebra 1 test the standard eighth-grade math test. In a letter Tuesday to state board President Ted Mitchell, he urged the board not to "perpetuate a two-track system."

"This fork in the road is a choice between California's bold future and a status quo that is safe, mediocre and unacceptable," he said.

O'Connell, in a letter Tuesday to district and county superintendents, said he recommends the state develop a new eighth-grade test that includes some, but not all, the material from the current Algebra 1 test.

He said the state needs to make other changes -- including making sure teachers at every grade are qualified to teach math -- before requiring all eighth-graders to take algebra.

The State Board of Education is scheduled to vote on the matter today.

— Shirin Parsavand
sparsavand@PE.com

So it was a little surprising to hear Riverside Unified school board members talk about him in the vein of non-traditional superintendents such as Los Angeles Unified's David Brewer, a retired Navy admiral.

Even more surprising was when board member Lewis Vanderzyl gave a harsh assessment of Young's ability to speak in depth.

"When I see him (Young) before a group of people at a public meeting, it is obvious to me he doesn't know a hell of a lot of what he's talking about," Vanderzyl said.

Vanderzyl, a former middle school principal, was reacting to fellow board member Tom Hunt, who said he was impressed with Young. Board members Monday were discussing whether they would consider candidates with a non-traditional background for the next district superintendent.

Reached later, Young declined to comment directly on Vanderzyl's remarks, except to note he did not come directly from the private sector to become superintendent. He's spent 13 years in education, between Lake Elsinore Unified and the county office.

Vanderzyl said later he was more blunt than he needed to be, and that he thinks Young may not be used to speaking in public.

That may be so, but it was Vanderzyl who was provoking nervous laughter from his colleagues Monday.

— Shirin Parsavand
sparsavand@PE.com

In this one, a mother and child listen to a car radio news report: "California is still facing a $15 billion budget crisis with local schools facing cuts of $4.3 billion."

The child asks the mom whether it's true, and she responds, perhaps a little bluntly: "Your fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Thomason, already got a layoff notice - along with 20,000 other educators across the state."

The child: "Mrs. Thomason?"

Mom seems to forget entirely that she's talking to a child when she says that politicians should "put partisanship aside and make education a real priority again." Or maybe the kid just has very strong vocabulary skills.

Leaving aside these quibbles, not everyone agrees on the numbers cited. The Legislative Analyst's Office says schools and community colleges would get more funding under the governor's revised budget proposal for 2008-09 than last year, although the increase is slight for K-12 schools.

The Education Coalition says schools and community colleges should get $4.3 billion more this year than they would under the governor's budget proposal. The bulk of that is from cost-of-living increases that aren't included in the budget proposal.

As for the teacher layoffs, union estimates on the initial layoff notices that went out in March ranged from 14,000 to 20,000. But many of those teachers were called back, hundreds of them in the Inland area alone.

— Shirin Parsavand
sparsavand@PE.com

Party officials said Loveridge, a Democrat, was out of line when he invoked the Democratic Party on behalf of Schiavone, a Republican running in a non-partisan election.

Now Loveridge and the winner in that race, Supervisor Bob Buster, are set to appear in public to honor another Frank: Frank Augustus Miller. The two have confirmed they will attend a groundbreaking Thursday in Woodcrest for a Riverside middle school named after Miller, the founder of the Mission Inn.

Later Thursday, the Democrats of Greater Riverside plan to decide whether to censure Loveridge over automated calls he recorded in support of Schiavone.

The Riverside County Democratic Central Committee unanimously voted last week to send Loveridge a letter of censure, but the letter will be sent only if the Democrats of Greater Riverside also approve it.

—Shirin Parsavand
sparsavand@PE.com

Trouble is, they haven't explained how they would pay for it, and Republicans have been adamant in their opposition to new taxes.

That didn't stop the state's superintendent of public instruction from lavishing praise on the plan approved in a party-line vote today by the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance.

Superintendent Jack O'Connell called it a "responsible education budget that recognizes California's difficult fiscal situation."

Under the 2008-09 budget proposal Gov. Schwarzenegger released earlier this month, total funding for school districts and community colleges would go up by almost $200 million from the current year.

— Shirin Parsavand
sparsavand@PE.com

For instance, the report says, migrant students start out learning English at about the same rate as other students learning English as a second language. But during the several years it takes them to become proficient, they fall a half year behind.

That sounds similar to what Foch "Tut" Pensis, superintendent of the Coachella Valley Unified School District, has been saying about why the state's testing regimen doesn't work for his district with its many migrant farm worker families.

State officials announced the availability of the report today.

California has more than 240,000 migrant students, the most of any state. These families don't come only from south of the border, and they don't all speak Spanish as their primary language.

Hispanics make up 98 percent of migrant students, but another 2 percent are Hmong and Punjabi, according to the report. Those working with the children have found speakers of more than 14 different indigenous languages.

—Shirin Parsavand
sparsavand@PE.com