CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: This Special Episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast was recorded live at Capitol Weekly’s Conference on Education Policy which was held in Sacramento on Tuesday, November 7, 2023. This is Panel 1 – TEACHER SHORTAGE AND OTHER CHALLENGES.
A view across the river of the CalSTRS headquarters in West Sacramento. (Photo: ImageAllan, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Here’s the best advice: To the more than 3 million retirees, teachers, firefighters, nurses, police officers and other state and local government employees who rely on the state’s two largest pension funds: Do not be alarmed. To the critics who periodically predict – always following downward swings in the stock market – that the pension funds will someday not be able to meet their obligations: Do not be alarmist.
Couple enjoying a lake in Rancho Santa Margarita, Orange County.(Photo: VG Photo, via Shutterstock)OPINION: As Americans confront the effects of a K-shaped recovery that is further enriching the wealthy even as low- and-middle income workers struggle to stay afloat, the chasm between Wall Street and Main Street has never seemed wider. Finding ways to bridge that chasm remains one of this nation’s greatest economic challenges.
Tom Ammiano at a gay rights rally in 2011. (Photo: Pax Ahimsa Gethen, Wikipedia Commons)Tom Ammiano is a San Francisco icon. The first openly gay teacher in San Francisco, he served on the board of San Francisco Unified School District and in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, with future mayor, lieutenant governor and governor Gavin Newsom. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor several times and made his way to Sacramento, where he served in the Assembly from 2008 to 2014.
A teacher and his students in a kindergarten class. (Photo: Monkey Business Images, via Shutterstock)After a couple of failed attempts, a move to expand transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds in California is under way. Assembly members Kevin McCarty, Phil Ting and Eloise Gomez Reyes and state Sens. Susan Rubio, Lena Gonzalez, and Bill Dodd have introduced Assembly Bill 2500 to approve universal transitional kindergarten.
A photo illustration of a driver on the road. (Image: Minerva Studio, via Shutterstock)OPINION: California’s track record regarding treatment of its teachers is mediocre at best. Budget cuts, overcrowded classrooms, a lack of school supplies, paychecks completely out of touch with the cost of living—teachers know what it’s like to be low priority.
Students participating in a discussion with their teacher. (Photo: Alex Brylov, via Shutterstock)California is experiencing a lack of qualified teachers even as enrollment rates in preparation programs rise. “Growth in teacher demand as the economy has improved has collided with steep declines in the supply of new teachers, leading to significant increases in the hiring of underprepared teachers, especially in districts serving high-need students,” the Learning Policy Institute reported last year.
Illustration of tax payments in California. (Photo: designer491, via Shutterstock)OPINION: With another Tax Day now behind us, it’s a good time to think about what we get back for the money we put into our government. As a recent college graduate from a low-income neighborhood in California, I am thinking about how my taxes should support the things my community needs – like good schools, trauma care, roads and health clinics.
Students in a classroom get instruction from a teacher. (Photo: Areipa.It, Shutterstock) Because the system is underfunded, the CalSTRS board has made no inflation adjustment in the death benefit since 2002. The board was told that it could have increased the death benefit by about 34.7 percent during the period.
A student going to school on the web. (Photo: Anna Tamila)OPINION: Like many families throughout California, ours is taking the important step of beginning another school year. Although we live in Sacramento County, my sons will be attending an excellent public school in Sutter County. Or, more precisely, the school will be coming to them. My sons attend the California Virtual Academies (CAVA), an online public charter school offered throughout the state and certified by the state of California.