The governor [has] got to get out there and say Look, this is the California that I envisioned, and in that California, schools play a critical role. It s about the future of our kids. It s about the future of the state and the country. And this is how [Prop.] 30 fits into that, said Darry Sragow, london inexpensive hotel a longtime political strategist.
Over the weekend, I spoke with Darry Sragow, an attorney and longtime Democratic strategist, about education's role in the 2012 election. Sragow has worked on several school bond campaigns at L.A. Unified and the Los Angeles Community london inexpensive hotel College District. london inexpensive hotel I picked his brain on the role of education in the national debate this election season. I also got some of his thoughts on the campaigns for Prop. 30 and Prop. 38. Educators throughout the state support the two initiatives to raise taxes in the hope that voters will approve them next month and school budgets will be saved.
A: Education is usually in California the No. 1 issue. If it's not education, it's the economy, and at the moment, it's the economy. Education is not an issue most voters think can be inherently dealt with at a national level. Schools are local and so voters inherently expect to have a dialogue london inexpensive hotel about education in local races and maybe in state races in their state, london inexpensive hotel but it's really a national issue only in a very broad policy sense. That's not insignificant, because at a national level you can set standards, "No Child Left Behind," things like that. But it's tough to address it concretely in the national race. Plus, of course, the big national issue is jobs.
A: Education can rally voters articulated the right way under the right circumstances. I happen to believe, and this happens to be my view as a longtime strategist, that voters would love to hear the candidates talk about their fundamental vision about how we have to educate kids in the 21st century. That's a very important issue that voters want to hear about. But the more mechanical issues of test scores and teacher london inexpensive hotel performance at a national london inexpensive hotel level is a yawn. That can be a big issue in individual districts. I do think there's an opening for Romney or Obama to talk about how we have to make sure that the kids in America london inexpensive hotel are being educated to compete for the jobs that are going to exist when they get out of school not the jobs that used to exist.
A: Well you know I have to be critical of both campaigns here, and this is something I say a lot, I don't think either london inexpensive hotel candidate for president has articulated a clear vision of where they want America to be in 2020 or 2030, and then tied in all these other things, whether it's education programs or healthcare or anything else, under that overarching vision of what America should look like in a couple of decades. And I think that voters sense that and it drives them nuts.
Voters know that everything is changing. We're sending kids to school from roughly September to June and they're sitting in classrooms at a time when technology means they can be taught in entirely different ways, in terms of the use of information technology. And also, going to school year-round. The usefulness of September to June as the only time a kid learns is absurd because the student has access to learning technology 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year. None of that's getting talked about.
A: Of course. Education is extremely important, and it is a defining issue for this country. If this country's going to be less competitive 10, 20 years from now, it's because we're not educating kids with the skills they need...We have privatized public education. In most cases in America if you can afford to send your kids to private school you do that. So public school by definition is educating the kids who are the ones who need the help the most, that's what we have at the L.A. Unified School District. The kids whose parents can't afford to send their kid somewhere else, so they're the ones who have the highest likelihood of dropping out, the least likelihood of getting a good job after school, unless we take care and educate them the right way.
It is a huge problem, but you're right, it's not being addressed, and it's not being addressed I think not because the candidates don't care. I think they do care. And not because the voters don't care, because I think they do care. I think it's not getting addressed london inexpensive hotel because we are at a time in America where the political dialogue is essentially counting angels on the heads of pins. We get lost in numbers over Medicare, we get lost in all this discussion that drives voters insane.
So yeah, it's a very important issue for the future of this country, and the future of the kids in particular in the public school system, who are the ones who need the education the most. And the fact that it's not being dealt with is a reflection I think not on that issue or education or its importance to voters or the country. I think it's a reflection of the fact that, I don't think the voters in America are lost right now, I think the leadership, the political elite in this country, is just sort of lost.
A: Yes. Both sides. And on not just this issue. Again, I think voters are waiting for Romney and Obama to lay out in clear terms presumably competing visions of what America in 2020, 2025 should look like. Where they're going. And right now, nobody knows where we're going. I mean the fact that they're pulling back on the space program is emblematic of this. This is a country that's always conquered frontiers, and now we're saying, yeah, but we've run out of steam, we can't conquer the next frontier.
A: There's no sense of a mission in which an ambitious smart student can participate to feel a sense of accomplishment london inexpensive hotel or to aspire to something, and to make more of himself or herself than the cards that they were dealt.
A: For their country, right. There just is no sense of a bigger mission. You know, I mean for better or worse there's no sense of a war that we're fighting with a great sense of justice. Going back to Vietnam and the war, people felt mixed. london inexpensive hotel Certainly World War II you could say, this is good or bad, but certainly there was a sense of mission. We were going to save the free world. Sputnik, for people who are of that generation, united this country because they said we're not going to let the Russians beat us in space. We sat around mesmerized and watched the first human being land on the moon.
We don't have that right now. I can't think of an equivalent. [Instead] we're into survival mode. As a nation we seem to be in survival mode and that is terribly frustrating to voters because they expect more of themselves and their government and their leaders. And I think that's the real frustration. london inexpensive hotel That's the real problem.
Q: On the issue of survival mode, let's talk about California's state budget, Prop. 30 and 38. They've been put forward to voters as emergency measures essentially, they must happen, or there will be dire circumstances. It sounds london inexpensive hotel like a campaign based on fear and people don't like to be threatened. What do you think about that? Maybe you don't see it that way?
A: No, no, those measures are both based on fear. They're if you don't do this, terrible things are going to happen. Now that happens to be true, but again, london inexpensive hotel we're talking about human psychology. And that is, if you say to me we can build a better tomorrow, but it's going to cost you $20, and I believe we can build a better tomorrow, london inexpensive hotel I'm going to give you $20. If you say things are all screwed up, we've done a lousy job, and we're going to need $20 just to prevent calamity, I'm going to say that's just not a very motivating reason for me to give my $20.
The argument is the schools are screwed up and if we don't come up with this money they're going to be even more screwed up. You know what? That's true. Absolutely true. But that's not what people london inexpensive hotel want to hear. They want to hear, the schools are screwed london inexpensive hotel up, and here's how we're going to fix them, and this is what it's going to look like when we have fixed them, and this is how we're going to get there.
A: Sure. But it's not just the ads it's the discussion that everybody in the political process has to have. But you've got to start somewhere. The ads would be a perfectly fine place to start. But it has to come from the governor, it has to come from the president, it has to come from Romney, it has to come from the Legislature. Everybody has got to conclude: You know what? Today's the first day of the rest of our lives collectively, london inexpensive hotel and we're going to do some good stuff. That's what's not happening.
A: I don't know what's going to happen. I think that it's entirely possible that 30 will pass. I think it's extremely difficult for 38 to pass. They're both not doing particularly well, but 38 is in a deeper hole than 30 based on the polling right now. But look, voters want to do the right thing, they really do. They're just not sure what the right thing is here.
A: It's very confusing london inexpensive hotel and it's not tangible. I managed five successful school bonds for the L.A. Unified School District, and I've run some community college london inexpensive hotel bonds. I'll give you an example, the L.A. Community College District lost big time on a bond and then they asked me to come in and try again.
Here's the difference. Our bond talked about repairing community college buildings, fixing them, creating a community college system that was up to the job of training people in Los Angeles for the jobs of the future. The bond campaign before that, that lost, talked about spending money on things like really pretty scoreboards for the athletic fields. I mean that literally is what they did.
Voters go 'You want me to pay more money in property taxes to build nice scoreboards? No, that's not worth it to me.' 'You want me to spend money to build classrooms so that people who want to get a community college degree can get a community college degree? Yeah.' 'Not fancy buildings, but yeah we don't have classrooms, we don't have chairs? I'll put my mone
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