My plan to work with AAPI and Filipino American Students.
Candidate Questionnaire.
SAN DIEGO ALLIANCE for ASIAN PACIFIC ISLANDER AMERICANS
& FILIPINO AMERICAN CAUCUS OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY
2008 CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE
Thank you for your interest in the San Diego Asian Pacific Islander and Filipino American community. Please answer each question in 250 words or less. Brief answers are satisfactory.
Please note: your questionnaire will be posted on our website for members to review.
CANDIDATE/CAMPAIGN INFORMATION
1.) Candidate name: Norberto P. Salazar
2.) Campaign address: 2321 Bay Hill Rd. Chula Vista Ca 91915
3.) Office sought: Chula Vista Elementary School District, Board of Trustees, Seat #2
Legislative district, if appropriate:
4.) Are you the incumbent: No
5.) Campaign website: none at this time
6.) Campaign email: nsalazar_ad78@hotmail.com
7.) Campaign phone: (619) 370-4219
8.) Campaign manager: none at this time
PERSONAL INFORMATION
9.) Are you a member of an Asian, Pacific Islander and/or Filipino organization? Yes
10.) If yes, please list your affiliations:
(1) FACE, Filipino American Community for Empowerment:
Secretary and Chair of the Education Committee
(2) FILAMEDA, Filipino American Educators Association
Member and Laison with FACE
(3) NaFFAA, National Federation of Filipino American Associations
Secretary and Laison with FACE
Please limit your answers to no more than 250 words for each question:
11.) What makes you the most qualified person for office?
I am the most qualified, first and foremost, because of my philosophy on NCLB: We need to replace NCLB test-based accountability, punishment and privatization with facilitating school improvement and helping schools to become communities of learners. Instead of testing, punishing and privatizing; we need to allocate funds to pay for time for educators to work together with adults, parents, families and students on developing new and innovative curriculum and instruction methodologies, creating banks of useful performance assessment tasks, evaluating student needs and how to meet them! We must allocate new funding to strengthen the capacity of districts and states to assist schools. This funding must encourage and strengthen the infrastructure of currently successful schools in helping less successful neighboring schools serving similar populations. We need more federal funding of research on Extended Performance Tasks to indicate whether students had learned and are able to apply key concepts in core subjects. We need a new federal law to restructure accountability. Schools should be expected to develop, implement, evaluate, and revise improvement plans. If our schools aren't able to implement such plans, or if they're incapable of making reasonable progress, given inputs and assistance, as indicated by Multiple Forms of Evidence of student learning, then this should lead to stronger interventions.
12.) Why seek support from the Asian Pacific Islander and Filipino community?
My previous attempt to get elected to the CVESD Board was in Nov. of '06. In that race, the incumbent, Mr. Larry Cunningham, collected 22,000 votes. I collected 12,000 votes and Mr. Steve Yagyagan, the Filipino American candidate, collected 7,500 votes. In this election of Nov. '08, there is no Filipino American candidate running. Since neither Mr. Yagyagan or I won in Nov. of '06, the needs of our Asian American, Pacific Islander and Filipino American students have once again been placed on the back burner.
If you unite with me, together we can make an incredible contribution to the continued academic and educational growth of our students. We can build an infrastructure that will assure us that the needs of our students will not go unmet.
For proof of this, please read the answer to the next question, #13.
13.) If elected, what are your top priorities during your term?
One of my top priorities will be to divide the Chula Vista Elementary School District (CVESD) into four regions: north, south, east and west. Each region shall have an Asian American, Pacific Islander and Filipino American Education Committee where like-minded parents, students, teachers, administrators and support staff can come together to discuss the education issues that of the highest priority for each of them, individually or as a group.
The education committees should elect officers, meet monthly, and then the following month, the four presidents and invited guests, should meet together to review and come to a consensus, as to the contents of the agenda which will be delivered to the CVESD Board of Trustees, for their consideration.
I stand ready to assist in this process in whatever manner we decide!
14.) What distinguishes your priorities and goals from the other candidates?
My knowledge and awareness of the needs of the Asian American, Pacific Islander and Filipino American students currently enrolled in the CVESD.
Current NCLB law states that in the 2007-08 school year, 35.2% of a school's population must be at Proficient and Advanced in English-Language Arts and 37% of a school's population must be at Proficient and Advanced in Math. In the 2008-09 school year, 46% in English-Language Arts and 47.5% in Math. In the 2009-10 school year, 56.8% in English-Language Arts and 58% in Math. In 2010-11, 67.6% and 68.5%, respectively. In 2011-12, 78.4% and 79%, respectively. In 2012-13, 89.2% and 89.5%, respectively. And finally, in the 2013-14 school year, 100% of a school's population must be at Proficient and Advanced in both English-Language Arts and Math.
As of today, in this 2007-08 school year, in the Chula Vista Elementary School District, 72% of the Asian population are Proficient and Advanced in English-Language Arts and 85% of the Asian population are Proficient and Advanced in Math. Same school year, same district, 75% of the Filipino population are Proficient and Advanced in English-Language Arts and 82% of the Filipino population are Proficient and Advanced in Math. Same school year, same district, 53% of the Pacific Islander population are Proficient and Advanced in English-Language Arts and 66% of the Pacific Islander population are Proficient and Advanced in Math. Same school year, same district, Socio-Economically Disadvantaged, 41% English, 51% Math; English Learners, 37% English, 49% Math; Students with Disabilities, 28% English, 35% Math.
To the degree that there are Asian, Filipino and Pacific Islanders that are identified as students with disabilities, English learners or Socio-economically disadvantaged, you can see by the percentages that we will need to implement a carefully crafted plan of action to make sure that all students are successful in school by the 2013-14 school year. At the rate that we're going now, some of these groups of students will not make it.
I will not stand idly by while these groups of students fail. It is unnecessary to let a student's mind deteriorate and waste away while we are nearby, close enough to prevent it. Our tax dollars are there to assure an equal opportunity in education for all students, including Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and Filipino Americans. We need to unite and move together in the direction that best fits the needs of our students.
15.) How have you in the past and how will you in the future use your position to expand the presence and influence of Asian Pacific Islanders and Filipinos in public policy and politics?
In the arena of politics, I have had the unique pleasure of getting to know such committed Filipino American citizens such as Ms. Aurora Cudal and Mr. Alfonso Villamora, two very active Filipinos in FACE and NaFFAA (please see #10, above). Under their guidance and leadership, we have worked tirelessly to increase our committees membership and educate many others of the great need there is to unite and work towards meeting the needs of our Filipino American communities. Together, this past month, in Sept. of '08, we attended the 8th Annual NaFFAA (National Federation of Filipino American Associations) Conference where we witnessed the election of the Federations newest Board members: National Chair, Mr. Greg Macabenga; National Vice Chair, Ms Rosita Lee and National Youth Chair, Mr. Ian Purganan.
In the arena of Public Policy, if I'm elected, with your help, to the CVESD Board of Trustees, Seat #2, I will have the great privilege of serving the Chula Vista communities of Filipino Americans in their quest to achieve educational equity.
16.) What have you done that demonstrates your commitment to and effectiveness in promoting Asian Pacific Islander and Filipino interests (and if you have not contributed, please discuss any area(s) you may have made a contribution &/or improve the current condition)?
For the past two years since Nov. of '06, I have been active in the Filipino American Education community through the organizations previously mentioned. But there is still much work that needs to be done. We need to expand the FilAm Vote movement and successfully register more Filipino Americans to vote this Nov. '08 election cycle to elect Barrack Obama as our next President of the United States. We need to explore further our Chicano/Filipino Heritage and use these experiences to unite with our Chicano/Latino/Hispanic brothers and sisters so that together we can successfully move forward into the 21st Century. We need to elect a Youth Chair for our very own Region X of NaFFAA so that we may be able to better engage our Filipino American Youth in the work of advancing the needs and rights of all Asian American, Pacific Islanders and Filipino Americans. In the arena of education, we need to more firmly unite with FILAMEDA, the Filipino American Educators Association, in order to better promote the goals and objectives of the Filipino Language Movement and so that the needs of our Filipino Second Language Learners will not go unmet. Without question, this is an exciting time to be organizing in our communities. I'm both hopeful and confident that we will develop and implement better practices and strategies to encourage and develop more community participation in our organizations.
17.) Due to periods of drought, the impending water shortages will have a drastic affect on playing fields and landscaping in our schools. What are your plans to help meet the demand for water resources?
Develop and implement a water conservation program for our very own CVESD.
18.) A new research report released by the Regional Educational Laboratory West at West Ed states that San Diego County will need to hire more than 5,500 teachers in the next seven years. What strategies will you implement to ensure teachers will reflect the student population that they serve? Most importantly once hired, that teachers receive the on-going training and support needed to meet the demands of their classrooms?
When discussing how to ensure that teachers reflect the student population that they serve, we are definitely talking about how to promote more Asian American, Pacific Islander and Filipino Americans to enter university programs with the intent of becoming teachers for our public schools. In my answer to #13 above, I describe the development of an infrastructure that can certainly assist us in this process. Through these regional committees, we can begin to cultivate and institutionalize a set of values and beliefs that will help to convince young people throughout the educational spectrum, that to become an Asian American, Pacific Islander and Filipino American teacher is the honorable thing to do. The future of our people depends upon it.
When discussing what newly hired teachers need for their on-going training and support to meet the demands of their classrooms, we are definitely talking about how to improve funding for our public schools. Our schools don't need to be privatized. To that effect, today we live in the post-industrial era, in the era of the information age, in the biomedical and biotechnical age. So why must we still rely on that out-dated mode of funding our public schools utilized during the industrial age when funds for schools were generated using the local and state tax base that a community generates. This is the very basis of the inequality that exists in our schools today. Why? Because urban and rural communities cannot generate the huge local and state tax base that the suburban communities are able to produce because of their higher property values. We have to find a way around this! We have to explore new and innovative funding mechanisms for fully funding education. If we are successful in this arena, then we will have more funding to provide newly hired teachers with on-going training and support needed to meet the ever increasing demands of their classrooms.
19.) Have you failed to vote in any national, state, legislative general elections or statewide ballot proposition elections in the past five years? If yes, why?
No.
20.) Do you have plans to seek higher office? If so, what office and when do you plan to run?
None at this time. I will stay focused on this Nov. '08 CVESD Board election for Seat #2.
Please list any endorsements you have received:
(1) The San Diego County Democratic Party. Please go to http://www.sddemocrats.org to view my endorsement.
(2) The San Diego / Imperial County's Labor Council. Please go to http://www.unionyes.org to view my endorsement.
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