SACRAMENTO – California Gov. Arnold (Kindergarten Cop) Schwarzenegger helped open this morning’s festivities for the National Charter Schools Conference by calling for more chowder schools in his state. When he was introduced by California Secretary of Education Alan Bersin, it seemed like he was going to talk about charter schools, so I’m still not sure what the chowder thing was all about.

(I know, I know, it’s not cool to make fun of the way someone talks. But seriously, the guy could kick the you-know-what out of everyone reading this blog, so where’s the harm? Plus he married a Kennedy, which makes him practically inhuman.)

Schwarzenegger told the crowd of 3,200 people that when he was a kid he was more interested in becoming the world’s strongest man than in studying. But he said his teachers in Austria made him do his schoolwork, and his mom “would smack me with a yardstick over the head” if he tried to pump-up before his homework was done.

He said he likes chowder schools because they are about finding better ways to educate kids. “We create a lot of action for chowder schools – and I believe in action,” he said.

(Once that moment passed in his speech, I knew there was no chance that he was going to go Terminator on the crowd with some sort of automatic weapon – it would have been the perfect cinematic moment i.e. “I believe in action, so hasta la vista, baby!”– so I promptly breathed a sigh of relief and got up from under my chair.)