Opinion
Need to keep a sharp eye on school vision tests
OPINION: With all that we do to try to help our children succeed at school, we are failing to properly screen students for correctable vision problems that can hinder learning.
OPINION: With all that we do to try to help our children succeed at school, we are failing to properly screen students for correctable vision problems that can hinder learning.
The 112-year-old schoolhouse with the old-fashioned bell looks like it should be a historical museum. But it’s a working K-8 public school with only 10 students. Washington School, about 20 miles east of Nevada City in the Sierra foothills, is one of a handful of one-room schools scattered scattered across rural California.
OPINION: California’s optometrists have a prescription for our members of Congress this year: Don’t lose sight of our children’s vision. As discussions about the Affordable Care Act take center stage with a new President and new Congress in January, children’s vision is a prime example of the comprehensive and economically sound approach to health that is at risk if the ACA is repealed without a replacement.
OPINION: The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to vacate the bribery conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has implications for California and its anti-corruption statute. The trial jury found that McDonnell performed official acts in exchange for gifts. But the Supreme Court decided that the jury was incorrectly instructed on the definition of the “official act” element of the federal corruption statute.
At least three lawsuits have been filed seeking to overturn California’s new law that prevents children from attending public or private school or day care without getting mandatory vaccinations.
OPINION: Protecting our climate is very important to the indigenous people of the Amazon. In the Brazilian state of Acre, where I live, we’re already seeing terrible heat, floods and droughts that we never used to experience. That’s why cooperation with California to protect our forests is important to people here.
Only half of California adults can be expected to vote in this year’s presidential election, and they are likely to be very different from those who do not vote—in their demographic and economic backgrounds and in their political attitudes. These are among the key findings of a report released Tuesday evening by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).
One thing about California’s lineup of looming ballot propositions: You can’t say they aren’t interesting. From school bonds to the environment to condoms to drugs to plastic bags, and more, voters already are set to vote on seven propositions on the November ballot. And many more are in the wings.
SB277 removes the right of informed consent from California parents. It slid through the Senate Floor on a Democratic Party line, and paused briefly at the Assembly Health Committee Hearing June 9th, drawing over 5,000 people in protest to the Capitol stairs and hallways of Sacramento. Its next stop, this week, the Assembly Floor Vote.
When I was a member of the electrical engineering faculty at the University of Michigan in the early 1990’s, I will never forget what the head of our department would invariably say to me whenever I stayed in the lab to work late. “Why are you still here,” he wanted to know. “Don’t you have a family to go home to?” From equal pay for equal work to access to health care and a host of other issues, it should be obvious to any thinking person that we don’t have the level playing field valued by so many Americans.