Letter to the Editor: Help Prioritize Education Funding

I was raised with high expectations.

When my father recently handed me a tattered and crumbling cardboard binder, I wasn't sure what to do with it. Nearly disintegrating in my hands, I recognized the handwriting and saw it contained a young man’s research—his research.

There were articles torn from newspapers and completed school assignments 20 people he noted in the news were Ribbentrop, the Duke of Windsor and Pearl S. Buck.

In short, the students at the East New York Junior High School were learning about literature, China, trade pacts being signed and Hitler on the rise. They were taught where Tanganyika was and about Mussolini in Italy. He took both Spanish and French. Latin and Greek classes were also part of the curriculum.

In one paper, something he highlighted resonated with me and stood out above all the other work. It was something that I know he taught me and my two sisters. The note said, “Advancement in life means becoming conspicuous in life.” I believe I am my father’s daughter in many respects, but perhaps none more so than that singular belief: being “conspicuous in life”—present, active and accountable.

What was most remarkable to me, the mother of a third grader in California's public school system, was how impressive the curriculum was in the 1930s and how globally-minded students were back then and how sad it makes me that we no longer have that kind of quality in our classrooms.I thought about was how far our educational system is from the days when Greek and Latin were accessible to all students, when expectations were high and teachers were revered. 

Recently, I attended a parent leadership training conference led by “Educate Our State,” a grassroots volunteer organization uniting the voice of Californians to demand high quality K-12 public education through a re-prioritization of funding at the State and local levels. The keynote speaker, Delaine Eastin, the former State Superintendent of Public Instruction said something so simple, yet so memorable: “Our children are a message we send to a future we will never see.”

This will be my guiding light moving forward, being "conspicuous." I am asking any of those reading this to join me to ensure and safeguard that future…to guarantee that it is not one in which our children do not know the Periodic Table because they’ve only had science in 2nd and 4th grades or one in which a child doesn’t know how to hold a paintbrush because she’s never been in an art class or a young boy hasn’t a clue how to catch a baseball because Physical Education was not in the budget.

If you are in California, you will have a chance to sign a petition in January that will seek to put a constitutional amendment on our 2012 ballot to re-prioritze funding in our state. If you are not in California, you can still support us—stay tuned for how!

Karen Davis