Andrew Lachman on Education: Our Future Starts Today

By Andrew B. Lachman

Public education is a fundamental right for every Californian and serves as the great equalizer for all Californians who want a better life for their children. Our public education system leaves behind the children most as risk while taking public money and putting it into private hands without accountability for spending those funds. It is a matter of justice that every Californian has access to a quality public school in their community.

Public education is a fundamental right for every Californian and serves as the great equalizer for all Californians who want a better life for their children. Our public education system leaves behind the children most as risk while taking public money and putting it into private hands without accountability for spending those funds. It is a matter of justice that every Californian has access to a quality public school in their community. Keeping California Competitive Means Investment in Education Now.

Andrew and his wife are expecting their first child this year, making their commitment to education all the more personal. Investing in quality education means California needs to get itself off the bottom of the national list of per-pupil spending and demand accountability. Proposition 98 provides for minimum funding for K-12 education spending and mandates minimum class sizes, but the budget crises has resulted in the suspension of much of Prop 98 and the loss of categorical funding requirements to fund art education, physical education and other components of a basic education that every other state uses. As a result California's schools aren't producing students with the skills to compete. That includes early education. Investment in early education yields dividends for everyone: better prepared students, higher test scores and a likelihood of less strain on social welfare, education and criminal justice services.

Our commitment to education does not stop at high school. Learning is a lifelong challenge. Our Community Colleges and Universities are not only incubators for the workforce of tomorrow, they are the jobs engines of today that keep good employers in the state. We can not continue job growth if we can not invest in our colleges and keep higher education affordable. To do otherwise is a violation of our promise to every Californian. As an Assemblyman Andrew Lachman will:

Make Education Funding a Priority

• Demanding accountability from teachers, administrators and services providers at every level of education, including charters and public schools.
• Give flexibility to localities to find ways of raising money for local services so that the state can properly fund education while supporting statewide revenue efforts to meet statewide education needs and keep classroom sizes small.
• Emphasize best practices and training for public schools to learn non-profit development to compete with charter and private school fundraising efforts.
• Support Prop 98 as a floor, not a ceiling for education spending.
• Emphasize spending in the classroom helping students, not on middle management.
• Push to ensure to maximize efforts to get access to Federal dollars such as Title I funds and to allow schools to spend Title I funding on arts education.

• Create programs to emphasize and educate parents how to be an involved advocate in their child's education.
• Invest in technology partnerships to get technology into our public schools to bridge the achievement gap for all students.
• End the "one size fits all" approach to education and give teachers and schools the flexibility to build programs that emphasize local needs and teaching over unnecessary standardized testing.
• Require availability of A through G curricula in every school so that every child who wants to attend college can have access to the classes needed to do so.
• Create more mentoring programs and expand availability of college guidance counseling early to get students on the right path to plan for college.
• Restore funding for arts education and physical education funding to build critical thinking skills, improve math and science test scores and create well rounded students with healthy minds and bodies.
• Protect programs to ensure intervention, guidance and management for at-risk children, LGBT youth and economically disadvantaged
• Focus on innovation to bridge achievement gaps for English learners, economically disadvantaged and minority children, including increasing parental involvement in their children's education.
• Maintain programs to support children with learning disabilities.

• Protect First 5 spending on preschool and early education programs.
• Invest in early education programming for pre-kindergarten and transitional kindergarten.
• Stand up for child care funding so parents can work and see their children prepared for kindergarten while creating a framework for early intervention for at-risk children, especially in economically disadvantaged communities.

• Support funding for CalGrants and an oil excise tax to pay for higher education to stop balancing our budgets on the backs of students and their parents.
• Focus spending on faculty, not exorbitant administrator salaries.
• Understand that community colleges are not just transfer engines. They have a variety of students, seeking degrees or new skills. They should be funded accordingly.
• Create more partnerships with industries and labor to offer programs where there are jobs needs such as energy conservation, video game production, the sciences and more.