California's Children

In California, teachers won't be packing heat: AB 202 is shot down

April 17, 2013: “I wouldn’t want my child in a classroom with a teacher who had a gun." -- Assemblymember Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo).

Sacramento reporter Patrick McGreevey posted tonight in the Los Angeles Times that the state Assembly Education Committee rejected today a proposal to allow school districts to train teachers and administrators to use guns to protect campuses against armed intruders.  Modeled after the air marshal program, the proposed school marshal program would exempt from public disclosure information on which teachers or administrators were authorized to carry concealed weapons on campus. As reported in the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert, "under current law, the California Public Records Act requires disclosure of concealed weapon permit holders.

...Only one member of the seven-member committee voted for the bill introduced by Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-Twin Peaks), at left, in response to the massacre at Sandy Hook....

Donnelly said his school marshal program would serve as a deterrent to campus violence because school districts would openly act to participate. Criminals would not know which teachers, if any, might be carrying a firearm, he said.

“It would send a very clear signal to a would-be deranged killer,” Donnelly said.

As U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) said tonight on The Rachel Maddow Show in the wake of the this afternoon's U.S. Senate killing the background-check gun control compromise bill, "The Republicans have made it very clear. They just sort of want to pass out guns to everyone, the good guys and the bad guys, and let them shoot it out and hope the good guys win."

Boy Scout LGBTQ anti-discrim SB 323 moves thru Sen. comm.

April 15, 2013: The "Boy Scout bill" (

SB 323)

 passed the Governance and Finance Committee of the California State Senate last week with a 5-2 vote along party lines, and heads to the Appropriations. 

The bill, author by Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Long Beach) would repeal the tax

-exempt status of any youth organization that discriminates based on gender identity, sexual orientation or religious affiliation.

 

As reported in Friday's Sacramento Bee, "The legisl

ation comes amid increased public pressure for the Boy Scouts to change its blanket ban on openly gay troops..."

 

 

 

 

 

Tues hearing for AB 352: smoke-free homes & cars of foster parents

April 15, 2013: Justin Pye, writing in today's Chronicle of Social Change, reports on AB 352, introduced in late February by Assemblymember Isadore Hall III (D-Carson-Compton), at left. An addition to the California Health & Safety Code (1530.7), the bill, if passed, would require foster parents "to maintain smoke-free homes, garages, bathrooms and cars." According to Pye, Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz counties "have already enacted similar regulations."

The bill is pending before the Assembly Human Services Committee; the hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, April 16.

 

CA Dems: Ed reform "tramples on teachers' rights"

April 15, 2013: Capitol Alert in the Sacramento Bee, in a post by Torey Van Oot, reports this morning on the weekend's state-wide annual convention of Democrats, noting that "much of the fiery rhetoric" was reserved for issues centering on education, most specifically "..StudentsFirst, the education policy advocacy group founded by Michelle Rhee, and Democrats for Education Reform, which has backing from former Democratic state Sen. Gloria Romero.

..."They sound like good names, but let's be perfectly clear. These organizations are backed by moneyed interests, Republican operatives and out-of-state Wall Street billionaires dedicated to school privatization and trampling on teacher and worker rights," California Teachers Association President Dean Vogel told delegates Sunday. "And we're not going to stand for that."

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson criticized the same groups by name, saying they do not "lift a finger to prevent the cuts to education."

"In my book, you're not a reformer, you're not helping education and you're sure not much of a Democrat," he said...

The CTA point of view can be seen in the YouTube posted video featuring Vogel's address to the group.

 

Obama proposes $75 billion for universal preschool

April 11, 2013: Taking a page from California's early ed book, the budget announced yesterday by President Obama calls for $75 billion to be spent on universal preschool (Preschool for All), funded by a 90-cent tax hike on cigarettes.

At left, Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP) CEO Cecila Ayala was quick to endorse the President's budget.

According to the Christian Science Monitor's DC Decoder:

...The federal government would partner with states to expand high-quality preschool to all low- and moderate-income 4-year-olds (children below 200 percent of the poverty level). Some of the funding would also support younger children and encourage expansion of full-day kindergarten.

An additional $750 million is proposed for FY 2014 to help states prepare if they aren’t yet ready to expand pre-K.

Obama “understands that the stubborn opportunity gap that confronts far too many American children ... often begins before they even enter school,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a press call Wednesday. The preschool proposal, he said, “would constitute the largest expansion of educational opportunity in the 21st century ... and will also pay huge dividends down the road.”

Although attempts to boost funding for early-childhood development aren’t new for this administration, it is a new approach to put the issue front and center under the authority of the Education Department, and to propose offsetting revenue, education analysts say.

“Trying to push for this new investment in pre-K programs, and [the] tax on cigarettes – that’s where the president is going to spend any education capital in the coming year,” says Michael Petrilli, an education expert at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute...But responses so far from House Republicans to the preschool program...indicate “it will continue to be a very tough sell,” he adds...

Meanwhile California early ed advocates and professionals were quick to endorse the President's budget.   

"The President's plan falls right in line with what Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP) has been doing for nearly a decade," says CEO Celia Ayala, above. "The new budget is a tremendous step forward for our nation's children." The nine-year-old LAUP has provided over 60,000 children with free or low-cost quality preschool -- regardless of socioeconomic background -- since it was established by First 5 LA, via funds from voter-approved tobacco tax inititiative Prop 10.

Catherine Atkin, president of Early Edge California (the very-new name of Preschool California) told Lillian Mongeau of EdSource:

“We’re really excited to see the president make good on his State of the Union commitment to make early learning a priority,” [Atkin] said...“We know that with one out of eight children in the country living in California, we stand to be big winners.”...

“[Still] I don’t want to be Pollyanna,” Atkin said. “The tobacco tax and the tobacco lobby in Congress is formidable. We are going to have to be very focused and beat the drum for this proposal.”

Advocates are also aware of a potential catch in relying on tobacco tax revenue. One much touted side benefit of tobacco taxes – that they help lower tobacco consumption – raises the risk of a steadily shrinking funding stream. But Atkin hopes that by the time that happens, the preschool programs would have proven their benefit enough to warrant ongoing funding.

In the meantime, California preschool advocates have already launched a concerted effort to ensure the state is ready to apply for federal funding for expanded preschool programming should money become available. Last week, a coalition of superintendents penned an open letter to Obama supporting his Preschool for All initiative and outlining how they would get their districts ready to partner with the federal government to expand preschool access.