Imagine if you were only legally allowed to shop at one grocery store. The produce is rotten, and the store doesn’t have any of your favorite items. Worse, other customers are violent, and they harass you, so you feel unsafe every time you shop. If you pay an exorbitant amount of money, you could shop […]
Tag: public education
Teaching in America: A Shattered Dream
I dreamed of following in my mother’s footsteps to become a teacher. We would spend our Augusts decorating her classrooms with cheesy quotes and fun colors. During the year, she would grade assignments and share her elementary school students’ funny insights while I did my homework by her side. Then, I began to watch her […]
A Legacy of Separation: Connecting San Francisco’s History of Redlining to the Educational Disparities in SFUSD
The city of San Francisco, seated at the center of innovation and wealth, has a long history of trying to reverse the effects of neighborhood segregation within the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). In the 1970s, their first desegregation attempt was enacted through the Horseshoe Plan and Operation Integrate, dividing SF into zones to […]
California’s Educators Pay the Price of School Board Politicization
In March 2022, Florida’s legislature made headlines for enacting the Parental Rights in Education Act, better known as the Don’t Say Gay Bill. California Republicans, on the other hand, don’t have the power to pass anti-LGBTQ bills in the democratically-controlled legislature. Instead, they’re attempting to dismantle public education from the bottom up by taking over […]
The Long Road to California’s Monumental HS Ethnic Studies Curriculum
Finally, after a very long debate and after countless revisions, California’s Board of Education approved an ethnic studies curriculum for California high schools. The vote makes California the first state in the nation to offer a statewide ethnic studies model for educators. It has been under development since 2016 and has gone through four drafts. […]
Funding for California Public Education Takes Great Hit in the Wake of Covid-19
When Covid-19 entered the United States, local and state California officials banded together to eradicate the spread and growth of the virus, implementing and re-assessing the functions of most of the states’ institutions and businesses. Indoor operations such as bars, movie theaters and restaurants were mandated to immediately close at the start of California’s stay-at-home […]
What the Chicago Teachers’ Strikes Reminded Us About Public Education
Like our parents, they see us off when we cross the stage and graduate. They applaud us, they congratulate us and they say their goodbyes. Years later they retire, and we learn that they’re just above the poverty line, even after those 45 years of dedicated work. We reminisce on their career and realize that […]
California’s Push for Performance in Higher Education
Over the past decades, reforms to implement performance-based funding (PBF) programs have been sweeping across the nation. California, joining 36 other states, is the most recent to switch to a PBF model for their higher education system. This legislation intends to link funding with specific measurable outcomes to ensure that public stakeholders receive the greatest […]
Queering Sexual Education: The Push for Comprehensive Sex Ed
In 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states must uphold same-sex marriages. Since then, the conversations regarding queerness in America have diminished from rallying cries to whispers. The lack of policy-oriented conversations addressing queer concerns gives the impression that queerness is no longer ostracized –which is wholly […]
Governor Brown’s New Budget Outlines His Vision for the Future
Last week, California governor Jerry Brown unveiled his budget for the new fiscal year. As specified by the passage of Proposition 2 on the November ballot, Brown put $1.2 billion into a rainy day fund while paying down the same amount of the state debt and addressing other obligations that Brown says the state needs […]