Students and others at a Los Angeles march targeting climate change. (Photo: Sam the Leigh, via Shuterstock)OPINION: The State Seal of Civic Education would create a shift in the collective mindset of our state’s schools toward prioritizing civic engagement education, providing guidance and resources for students to become involved in activism, and incentivizing community organizing work.
For the next six months, California voters will be bombarded with election images. Among the sinister attack-ad voice-overs and the political arguments engulfing social media, voters may catch a glimpse of ”Birdee,” a plump, twinkly eyed red bird, one of several animated characters in California’s political wars.
They’re called Veterans Treatment Courts, a little-known part of the judicial system that deals specifically with military veterans crippled by stress, drugs and the memories of war. The specialized courts can be found around the country. But only 12 of California’s 58 counties have this service for veterans.