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Health & Fitness

Jacqui Viale

Part I: I believe in public education opportunities for all. I am ready to fight for it and hope you will join me.

Act Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

On May 24, 2011, I attended a rally put on by Educate Our State at Longfellow Elementary School. Afterwards I came home and got on the computer to write a report for Patch.com. I kept it strictly to the facts, just the facts ma’am. But now I want to tell you how I really feel, did you ever doubt that I would?

Educate Our State (EOS) is a group started by some San Francisco moms who knew they needed to shed more light on the crisis facing public education in California. Their organization has grown to a statewide network, and Long Beach was just one among many cities that made the effort to join the multi-city demonstrations taking place on the same day up and down California. I only became aware of the group in the last month as I geared up to work towards helping to get this legislation passed through the California Assembly. I am a lifelong proponent of public education and advocate for children but we could have been working together all along as most of the EOS talking points match my beliefs pretty closely.

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It was encouraging to see that several hundred parents and kids came from across Long Beach to hear what the speakers had to say. I brought my daughter because the last time we rallied she was so energized by the power she felt when exercising her constitutional rights, she was supercharged to engage in some more free speech, and so was I. The intent was solid, the organization was clear, but as I listened and watched I had a sinking feeling that it just was not enough.

I want to say right off that I am very grateful to the Long Beach parents who organized this rally. Having tried to get a little impromptu rally going myself during the teacher lay-off hearings, I know how hard it is. Finding space and time and people to come and show support for something that many clearly support doesn’t seem like such a daunting task, but you would be surprised. Most people find the thought of demonstrating for their beliefs a little intimidating in our near corporate state of pseudo-democracy.  Some even fear signing petitions because they think it could come back to haunt them…how it would haunt them I couldn’t say, but some specter must be hovering nearby.

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Then I want to say that if this is all we can do for our kids, IT IS NOT GOING TO BE ENOUGH! Almost every speaker at the rally on Tuesday said that we cannot let public education be cut year after year, that we have to make the legislators understand that it will be devastating to our children and their schools, as well as all of the adults who benefit from higher education opportunities. I felt like screaming, “But what will we do if they do not vote for this?!” There are no significant consequences for these legislators if they fail to pass this extension, if they choose to forgo support of future legislation that could change how schools do business.

There is a major point that we are all failing to elucidate in this debate and that is the ultimate consequence of failure to provide adequate educational opportunities for all citizens. If we continue hurtling down the rabbit hole we have accidentally fallen into, by not planning ahead and ensuring the continual improvement and growth of our educational system, we are going to end up with a society of unsophisticated and unskilled workers, unable to provide for themselves and their families in the way that Americans have come to expect and demand. We already see a greater divide among the socio-economic classes in wage distribution and home ownership. Foreclosures are still on the rise this year and the disparity between the rich and the poor has climbed to its widest divide ever in the U.S., according to the 2010 Census. Those measures have been traditional indicators for economic success within our American society.  So things are changing, and not in a way that most of us want to see. I guess if you are Hedge Fund manager you are dancing on the tables. But I do not need to give anybody a lesson in economics here, especially because I am definitely not an expert, just an interested party.

The point I want to bring home is that we are all connected, the good old laws of physics still do apply so that when there is a push on one side, something happens on the other side. When kids are not getting the nurturing they need, whether it is due to family financial crises that require moms and dads to work multiple part time jobs just to make ends meet, or if it is because classrooms become so crowded that the teacher simply does not have enough minutes in the day to sit with each child and hear how they decode the words on the page, something will happen on the other end when they grow up. Maybe Lorelei will not have the study skills she needs for college; maybe Jasper is lacking in social skills necessary to get ahead in the corporate world. Nothing too devastating on its own and maybe those kids can surmount their difficulties. But when it is all piled together, every kid’s needs and difficulties along with every family crisis and all government shortcomings, it adds up to societal problems that we will be forced to deal with. And it is not going to be pretty. Things are looking ugly to me already.

You are darn tootin’ right that I will do everything in my power to make sure that my own children and any others who I can influence will get every advantage that I can provide, every ounce of wisdom and experience that I can impart, every calorie of nutritional food that I can prepare and show them how to prepare, they will get! But I cannot do it alone, and I will not make a difference on the larger scale, if the city libraries are closed, parks are polluted and sold off and the schools are unwelcoming and ineffective. This is where we are headed in my opinion. It is almost a cultural apocalypse.

So I am pleading with anyone and everyone who will read and think about what I am saying here to join your voice to a cause where you have a chance to make a difference for a child or an adult learner. The unions can help if they are willing to radically change how they do business, but not the way they are working right now. First in, first out tenure systems are archaic and detrimental. Our government officials can help if they choose democratic action over political expediency. Re-election is not a democratic cause that benefits constituents. But until those things are reversed then it is just us, it is always just us. We are them and they are us. We the people are the government, and if we just lay down and take what is happening without participating in symbiotic, meaningful growth and change, then we get what we deserve.

I am not an isolationist, I like people too much, and so moving to an island is not an option. This is what I propose: We all talk together, write together and make it known what is important to us. Then we act together because talk is cheap. For me it is educating our children because I see that as one of the most valuable things we can do for our society. If it is something else for you, good, go and make it happen! We have everything to lose if we don’t.

Stay tuned for Part II: How do we make the consequences real for legislators?

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