Anyone who has purchased shampoo, toothpaste or body wash in the US within the past five years knows what a nightmare of options such an excursion presents. Improvable claims about 'beautifying effects' tempt even the most cynical, constantly growing and shrinking bottle sizes baffle the budget-conscious, and assertions of 'purity' lure those concerned about their health and the environment.

Acculturated to the idea of "consumer choice" by our corporate - dominated society, most of us latch on to our primary objective (beauty, frugality or health and sustainability) as a light house - a beacon to help us navigate the sea of choices.

In my household, our concern was health - for us, for the environment, and for society. Even before my husband was diagnosed and treated for cancer in early 2008, we made a concentrated effort to weed out toxic ingredients. This meant purchasing brands that most mainstream consumers had never heard of, like Tom's of Main and Burt's Bees.

Our pro-active toiletry purchases complemented our diet. We had recently begun eating organic and minimally processed food to the extent possible - discovering among others brands such as Kashi, Odwalla, Naked Juice, Cascadian Farms, Barbara's, Health Valley, Arrowhead Mills, Stoneyfield Farms and Dagoba Chocolates.

That was in 2004. Still in college and working several jobs, we could justify more expensive purchases on our tight budget for moral reasons: I simply couldn't fathom knowingly using a product loaded with carcinogens - toxins that I would massage directly onto my own scalp and then rinse down the drain out into the lakes and streams. We also wanted to help smaller, environmentally conscious companies succeed in a market dominated by Archer-Daniels Midland and Unilever.

Just five years later, our attempt to "do our part" for the planet through eco-conscious purchases seems sadly anachronistic. If we make the same purchases today, we are no longer helping mom-and-pop enterprises, but are instead lining the pockets of the largest multinationals we set out to avoid.

In her recent Alternet article, "In Burt's Bees, Tom's of Maine, Naked Juice: Your Favorite Brands? Take Another Look -- They May Not Be What They Seem", Andrea Whitfill reveals that not all "natural" brands are as sustainable as their marketing and bucolic origin stories make them appear.
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/131910/burt%27s_bees%2C_tom%27s_of_ma?page=entire

Whitfill's research will make most of us think twice about the supposedly progressive brands we purchase:

Burts Bees is now owned by Clorox. Tom's of Maine is now owned by Colgate-Palmolive. Brown Cow Yogurt is owned by Danone, which also owns a majority stake in Stoneyfield Farms Yogurt. Horizon Organic (milk and eggs) is owned by Dean Foods. Odwalla is owned by Coca-Cola. Pepsi owns Naked. Smuckers bought R.W. Knudsen and Santa Cruz Organic.Kellogg's now owns Kashi, Kraft (itself a subsidiary of Altria, which also owns Phillip Morris) bought Back to Nature, General Mills owns Cascadian Farms, and Weetabix owns Barbara's. Mother's is owned by Quaker Oats (in turn owned by Pepsi)and both Health Valley and Arrowhead Mills are owned by Hain Celestial Group (which Whitfill points out is traded on the NASDAQ and partially owned by Heinz). Green & Black's chocolate was bought by Schwepp's, and Dagoba Chocolate is now owned by Hershey's.

Surprised? I consider myself relatively up to speed on which of my (formerly) special brands have been purchased by a global corporation, but even I was shocked by the almost complete degree to which this process has taken place. What's left? Maranatha Peanut Butter? Annie's Organic Bunnies? Muir Glenn?

There may be no way to tell. Whitfill points out that such corporate ownership is rarely made obvious on the packaging.

She includes a revealing quote by Laura Christenson of Spins: "There is frequently a backlash when a big cereal package-goods company buys a natural or organic company.I don't want to say it's manipulative, but consumers are led to believe these brands are pure, natural or organic brands. It's very purposely done."

This leaves advocates for the environment turned concerned shoppers in a serious bind. Do we submit and buy regular Clorox and Colgate on the cheap? (They are much less expensive, after all). Or do we continue making our old purchases, knowing that the money is going to the multinational instead of a man out in the forest tending his bees? If we choose the second, do we comfort ourselves with the thought that we are still using a product that is less harmful? (As far as I know, the parent corporations haven't fiddled with the ingredients - that would kill the golden goose.) Or do we tell ourselves that 'at least we are making a values statement?' Or is it none of these but something else altogether - a positive development by which healthier products are becoming more widely available to the masses at potentially lower cost?

I'm not entirely certain. What I do know is that the idea of 'buying our way to sustainability' - if it ever had any real hope- is now officially dead. If we want truly sustainable goods (organic in the fullest, original sense of the word), we have to start at the beginning. We have to see daily hygiene and sustenance not as a cache of favorite labels, but with an eye toward simplicity and the home-made.

We've already begun making our own toothpaste, have recipes for shampoo and conditioner, and make our own kitchen and bath cleaner. We make our own bread, and cook dinners not from a box but from the garden - even if we have to buy the produce from store. By slowing down and looking to commercial products only when we truly require them, we can all live more simply. Which is, after all, the heart of sustainability.

California’s recent budget stalemate is nothing new to our state. In fact, it’s been happening for years and is the result of an ineffective state requirement of more than a simple majority to pass budgets. California’s two-thirds majority rule produces a drawn out circus of negotiations that lawmakers have forced us to endure nearly every year for the past 32 years. Education suffers annually from the instability and uncertainty of this process and is usually on the chopping block when Democrats make concessions to Republicans in order to win their votes - this year $11.6 billion was cut. Without a better system to pass a budget, how can we hope to address the education problems facing our state?

This year California’s stalemate was record breaking. On Friday, February 19th, lawmakers finally agreed on a combination of tax increases, spending cuts, and borrowing to eliminate California’s $41 billion dollar budget gap - after nearly a week of political horse trading in Sacramento. In the Senate, the two-thirds majority was finally reached after Democrats made adequate concessions to Senate Republican, Abel Maldonado. Maldonado joined two Republican colleagues and the Democrats to hit the needed threshold. In the end, California got a budget that resolves the shortfall but at the expense of crippling cuts pushed by the minority in order to break the stalemate. According to State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, the recent budget “essentially transfers our state cash flow problem to local schools and districts.”

Proponents of the two-thirds majority claim it is a necessary safeguard so the minority party is not irrelevant to the budget process. But what does that say about our Democracy? What about the will of the people and the candidates we vote for to represent us at the state level?

Our current system essentially tells California voters that although you elect your representatives, the minority party actually knows better than the voter what is right for California. It is a system that dilutes the power of our elected officials who are in the majority. As it currently stands, Democrats have majorities in both the state Assembly and Senate. They are prohibited, however, from passing a budget without at least a few Republican votes in both houses. Since Democrats and Republicans have very different ideas about what’s best for California, shouldn’t it be that if Republicans want a louder voice, they must win more support from Californians for their way of doing business?

The final budget wasn’t particularly palatable to either Democrats or Republicans. According to Karen Bass, Democratic Speaker of the California State Assembly, who spoke with Rachel Maddow on the eve of the final passage, “California is ready to go over a cliff and that will happen tomorrow because tomorrow, 276 more projects, which will lead to tens of thousands of people being put out of work, will be called to a halt tomorrow if we don’t get that one Republican vote tonight.”

Because of the severity of the situation, our Republican governor and legislative leaders from both parties had spent months negotiating a budget together that would fix the deficit problem and not bring state projects to a costly halt. But even teamwork could not prevent what the two-thirds majority guarantees – an obstructionist minority party has the power to bring the budget process and the state to its knees.

Although I disagree with Senator Maldonado’s need for concessions from the Democrats before doing what is right for California, it certainly took a lot of courage to join the Democrats. Maldonado, like all the Republicans in our state legislature, signed a pledge never to raise taxes. Republicans who break with the party in order to do what is right have literally been threatened by right-wing talk radio shows across the state. In her interview with Maddow, Bass described one station that posted caricatures of Republican legislators’ heads on sticks on its website, and has threatened to have them recalled.

The two-thirds majority debacle is not limited to legislators passing budgets. In 1978, Proposition 13 expanded the two-thirds vote requirement to raising any tax in the state. Last November here in Monterey County, ballot Measure Z won 62.55% of the vote to improve our roads and provide alternatives to driving. Though Measure Z was supported by all five county supervisors, Republicans and Democrats, and all 12 City Councils in the county, it still came up short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass.

Over the years many California communities have faced the same uphill battles to pass school bonds and other initiatives. When a two-thirds majority is needed, the will of the few often supersedes the good of the majority. And, when ideology obstructs logic and inhibits the state’s ability to take care of its people, we clearly have a system that is broken.

It will take a vote before the people to change the two-thirds majority rule in California. Hopefully, after this year’s budget stalemate and subsequent fallout for the state’s most vulnerable citizens, California voters will be ready to take on this campaign and vote to repeal this flawed system.

My blog is part of a month-long series on education in California,
published in partnership with the University of Phoenix and our publishing platform
Six Apart. WIP Contributor Kimberly Chase is also participating.
Be sure to look for both of our articles, as features and Talk blogs each Monday in March.

California has been reeling from the current budget crisis -- real-estate values have plummeted and general economic instability has reverberated in the Golden State. The legislature has decided to curb spending, and in doing so they have put schools at the center of the chopping block. This year’s budget will cut education by $8.4 billion out of its previous $58.1 billion budget, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A class of 30 children will receive $11,400 less, amounting to $380 per student for grades K-12, according to the Chronicle, in a state that currently ranks 47th in the nation in the amount spent per child.

There just isn’t enough money to go around, and more than other groups, schoolchildren will be the ones getting the short end of the deal. This is bad for California’s future and unfair to each of the students who depend on public schools to help them develop a base for future learning.

Needless to say, San Francisco won’t get through this unscathed. The San Francisco Unified School District estimates cuts of $51 million over the next two years, which will affect nearly all aspects of the city’s educational structure. Teacher training will be cut back, and there will be less support for weaker students. Class sizes may increase and there will be less money for teaching materials.

Teaching jobs have also been threatened. The superintendent intended to propose warning 506 teachers that they may not have jobs next year, but the Mayor Newsom has granted $23 million from the city’s Rainy Day Fund, 25 percent of the fund’s holdings, to prevent this action.

Cuts will be devastating to early education, but the state’s universities will be less affected. There is likely to be more demand for classes as people seek out education after being laid off or strive to remain competitive at their jobs. There could be an increase in worker training programs and other classes that keep people at the cutting edge of their fields.

Community colleges, because of their affordable tuition, will be especially likely to see increased enrollment. This could lead to problems with overcrowding, but it will also bring more revenue from tuition. People out of work or worried about their jobs are likely to seek training, but employer-sponsored education is likely to decrease.

There are many things California can do to shield student from the effects of economic instability, but the first should be a moral and pragmatic prioritizing of education. Special funds can also be created - San Francisco created the Rainy Day Fund in 2003, which requires the city to save money when times are good for urgent needs when the economy goes south. The San Francisco Unified School District is qualified to use up to 25 percent of the fund when faced with budget cuts and teacher layoffs. The Rainy Day Fund is an excellent example of how to safeguard the schools, but it would not be necessary if the state viewed the education of its young people as an essential investment in its future.

My blog is part of a month-long series on education in California,
published in partnership with the University of Phoenix and The WIP's publishing platform
Six Apart. WIP Executive Editor Katharine Daniels is also participating.
Be sure to look for both of our articles, as features and Talk blogs each Monday in March.

On December 16th I posted EngenderHealth’s first video in series of five to advocate for improved global reproductive health policy under the Obama administration. Don't miss video #2 just released and posted below that poses the provocative question, "If you had $1 billion to change the world, what would you spend it on: easing world hunger, reducing global instability, or preserving natural resources?"

Their answer is that you don't have to choose: Spend $1 billion on family planning and we can make a difference in all of these areas. The cost? Less than 1/20th of 1% of the proposed federal budget (.03%) -- less than a penny per day per American. EngenderHealth has set up a site where you can tell Obama that international family planning is a priority for you and it should be one for him, too.

I'm excited to post that A Man Named Pearl will be shown on HGTV. If you have cable, you should try to check it out!

Despite the vital role of teachers in the early development of California’s citizenry, the importance of teaching is rarely recognized. Talented college graduates with the potential to earn a good living are unlikely to choose teaching because of its modest salaries, and this low earning potential may have in fact created the lower status that teaching now occupies.

The projected retirement of about a third of California’s teachers over the next decade and the shortage of incoming teachers implies a decline in this status over time. But what has turned people away from this profession, a noble calling with the potential for a positive impact on society? Teachers have ideal schedules too, with early hours and long summer vacations. They get to be with children, and they can make a difference in the lives of hundreds or more. What, then, would keep new recruits away?

It might just be the money. It’s not that the salaries are exactly abysmal, but they certainly don’t comfortably cover the cost of living in California, which has become astronomical. For all of California, the average teacher salary for 2007-8 was $65,808, but that might take a while to work up to, and even then it’s not that stellar for people who are talented enough to get into law or medical school.

Take San Francisco, for example. According to the California Department of Education, the average teacher salary in the San Francisco Unified School District for fiscal year 2007-2008 was $59,448. The lowest salary offered was $39,195 and the highest was $77,630. For young San Franciscans who would like to enjoy city life and live close to work so they don’t have to spend hours on BART every day, a salary below $40,000 may not seem like the greatest proposition. Furthermore, the best candidates for teaching positions in this area – those who are talented, energetic, smart and well-educated - will be tempted toward professions that can allow them to pay their bills, not live with fifteen roommates and go out once in a while to enjoy the city’s restaurants, clubs and other attractions.

Previous generations may have gotten in at a better time - older teachers who now make up to $77,630 may have come into the system at a time when the cost of living was lower in proportion to income. Now, post-housing bubble, they have salaries that can at least buy them a nice dinner or a movie ticket on the weekend. Younger teachers are not seeing the same good luck.

One option is to increase public school funding, but in an age of flailing markets and uncertain budgets, another is to shrink the gap between the bottom and the top teacher salaries. Why shouldn’t the 28-year old Berkeley graduate who’s still full of hope and inspiration be compensated at a level closer to his or her jaded, cynical colleagues who have been there for 20 years? If students are rewarded based on merit, shouldn’t teachers be too?

Essentially, what California is doing by keeping these salaries less than exciting is to hurt the school system by attracting less qualified teaching candidates. The state is giving little reward to those talented young professionals who choose to go into teaching for the love of it, and they are making one of the most important professions into an option for those unable to make it into higher-paying markets. In short, teaching isn’t high-status, and it should be. The schools are where we find and nurture the very young talents that will one day lead the state, and maybe even become great teachers themselves. That’s why we should be giving those who choose to become educators the respect and compensation they deserve.

My blog is part of a month-long series on education in California,
published in partnership with the University of Phoenix and The WIP's publishing platform
Six Apart. WIP Executive Editor Katharine Daniels is also participating.
Be sure to look for both of our articles, as features and Talk blogs each Monday in March.

Although rape as a weapon of war has existed for as long as war itself, it continues taking a heavy toll on women's lives in today's conflicts around the world. A high proportion of the women who are victims of rape end up infected with sexually transmitted diseases and infections, including HIV.

Since most of the countries experiencing an almost perpetual state of internal strife lack medicines and basic health-care services, becoming HIV-infected is virtually a death sentence. Given the wide use of rape as a weapon of war in some countries, especially those experiencing ethnic or tribal conflicts, and the high rates of HIV infection among warring factions, rape is rapidly becoming genocidal.

Rape happens on a wide scale in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda and Sudan. In the DRC, where more than 3 million people have been displaced by war, rape victims are counted in the tens of thousands. According to some estimates, up to 60 percent of combatants in the DRC are HIV-infected.

In Uganda, soldiers from the Lord's Resistance Army have raped and mutilated women in their struggle to replace a secular government in the country. Despite the cessation of hostilities the situation in the country remains grim. “The horrific violence committed during the many years of conflict in northern Uganda continues to aggravate discrimination against women and girls in the area today,” stated Godfrey Odongo, Amnesty International’s researcher in Kampala.

Rape was widespread in Rwanda. According to the group Women's Equity in Access to Care and Treatment, 67 percent of rape survivors in Rwanda are HIV-infected. As Anne-Christine d'Adesky, executive director of Women's Equity in Access to Care and Treatment stated, "Rape is an engine of HIV infection."

While rape in Rwanda has stopped, it continues in Sudan and the DRC, where human-rights activists say girls as young as 3 years old have been raped with knives, sticks and guns. In the DRC, gang rape has become so common that thousands of women suffer from vaginal fistulas, which leave them unable to control bodily functions and lead to lifelong debilitating health problems.

Rape as a way of humiliating women, their families and their communities is frequently conducted in public, in front of husbands and children. It is, in essence, a brutal way to show or maintain dominance over the women and their families.

A report by Amnesty International, "Darfur: Rape as a Weapon of War: Sexual Violence and Its Consequences," called attention to the phenomenon in Sudan. According to the Amnesty report, there is a pattern of systematic and brutal attacks against civilians in the Darfur states of Sudan by a government-sponsored militia called the Janjaweed and by the government army. The attacks are the Sudanese government's response to attacks by two main insurgent groups founded in 2003.

The confrontation in Sudan has led to the displacement of over 1.2 million people, most of whom have become internally displaced. The rest have taken refuge in neighboring countries. That these acts have the acquiescence of the government is evidenced by the fact that no member of either the Janjaweed or the armed forces has been charged with rape or other human-rights violations.

There are many other consequences of rape aside from the obvious physical and psychological violence of the act and the high risk of HIV. Many women get pregnant after being raped. In many cases women raped are killed afterward by their attackers. Among those that survive a high proportion are forced to become sex slaves.

Many men view the rape of their wives as a form of humiliation not only against them but also against the ethnic, tribal or religious group they belong to. This may cause husbands and communities to reject women victims and even their children. The women, having endured the brutality of the rape itself and its physical and psychological consequences, then find themselves denied their most basic human rights.

Even when pregnancy does not occur, men in patriarchal societies still may reject their wives, mothers or daughters after they have been raped. Lepa Mladjenovic, a Serbian psychotherapist and antiwar activist, says rape renders a woman "homeless in her own body."

Given the scale of abuses against civilians in Sudan, including the rape of children as young as 8 and women as old as 80, Amnesty International is calling for an international commission of inquiry. Such a commission should be supported by the United Nations and leading Western democracies. Difficult as this problem is, only rapid action and widespread political support will offer the possibility of diminishing its barbaric impact.

According to a September LA Times article, high unemployment rates are driving some Californians back to school. With more than 1 in 10 out of work (10.1% of our workforce) are Californians turning this downturn into an opportunity? Will the economic hardships facing our state become California’s diamond in the rough?

Higher education is considered by most Californians to be a pre-requisite for a good job. In fact, a college degree now represents what a high school diploma did thirty years ago. But in the last thirty years, budget cuts have devastated California’s high school and elementary schools. Students are left without the critical support they need not only to prepare and apply for college but also to stay in school.

For years these California students have been the innocent victims of bad governance at the state level - with low graduation rates and college attendance as the result. Just last week a school district in my county – which has already sacrificed teacher’s aids, janitors, clerks and school bus services in past cuts – was forced to put dozens of teachers’ jobs on the line, despite the district’s success in the classroom and rising test scores.

In July, using a new and improved system for tracking dropouts, the LA Times reported that one in four California students quit school before graduation. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise. With each new budget cut, California has made it increasingly more difficult for students to stay in school and succeed. My county is not unique. Throughout the state almost 10,000 custodians, bus drivers and food service workers have lost their jobs. California schools boast the largest class sizes and the greatest shortage of librarians, counselors, and other support staff in the country.

It is time for the state to rectify the neglect and burden placed on yesterday’s students. We can do this by creating educational opportunities for those Californians who never had the support to make the transition from high school to college and who now find themselves out of work. These Californians should be able to return to school and earn their degree. And somehow, despite today’s dismal economic climate, California must support them in their effort to do so.

Unfortunately, instead of measures to support out-of-work Californians returning to school, California’s recent budget will slash $8.4 billion in cuts for schools including community colleges.

The state of California has three public higher education systems – the University of California (UC), the California State University (CSU), and the California Community College (CCC). Both the CSU and the CCC have traditionally been more accommodating to older re-entry students than the UC. Both offer more degree programs in the evenings and additional online courses. The requirements for admission to the CSU are generally less stringent than the UC system and the cost to attend is roughly half. The California Community College system is open to all adults, and California residents do not pay tuition to attend. They pay an enrollment fee per unit, which is substantially less than the cost to attend a California State University. With 110 Community Colleges in the state, the CCC system is the largest system of higher education in the world.

But unfortunately, like the UCs and CSUs, many of our community colleges are strained beyond capacity. Some of the strain is produced by the overflow from our four-year universities. This year, the CSU system faced an enrollment boost, forcing the closure of its freshman application period early and cutting off an estimated 10,000 students. And in January the UC Board of Regents voted to cap freshman enrollment for 2009-10 in response to continued underfunding by the state. According to the LA Times, while community colleges can absorb the cost of educating more students in the short term, by next spring or fall they will have to receive more funding or be forced to cut back course sections.

One opportunity California’s students will have is in the federal stimulus package, which increases spending on Pell Grants from about $19 billion this year to $27 billion. This federal grant, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, does not require repayment and is awarded to candidates based on financial need.

California has the unique opportunity to take the worst job market our state has faced in decades and make it a time to prepare and train Californians for a better tomorrow. But California’s workers cannot do this alone. California must innovate and reinvent its system of higher education to best serve the needs of its students. We must make higher education more available and affordable – especially to those out-of-work who may also be the same Californians robbed of a decent education when they were younger.

It is my hope that government will recognize that now is not the time to slash funds for education. Instead, in this time of great hardship, we have the opportunity to train and strengthen our workforce so when we rise again we will do so better prepared and more able to meet tomorrow’s challenges.

My blog is part of a month-long series on education in California,
published in partnership with the University of Phoenix and our publishing platform
Six Apart. WIP Contributor Kimberly Chase is also participating.
Be sure to look for both of our articles, as features and Talk blogs each Monday in March.

I do not yet have children, but when I do, I will be inclined to either home school them or enroll them in a charter school with an emphasis on the arts, sciences, or another area of their interest. This is not because I do not support the democratic ideal of public school - quite the contrary - but because I would not want my kids to waste their time and potential as my siblings and I did for so many years. The demands on public school are so great that a talented or struggling individual student is easily overlooked and much time is wasted on trying to maintain classroom discipline. Ironically, with their mandate to broadly serve everyone, many public schools end up deeply meeting the needs of no one. I am especially concerned with the over-emphasis on testing and the rote-memorization in public schools that is becoming a proxy for real learning. By contrast, there is a palatable sense of purpose and a dynamic energy at many charter schools, and I would want my kids to be surrounded by that aura of dedication, personal attention, and quality instruction.

And yet, for all of their appeal, I don't know that these schools are the solution. For one thing, I would argue that they are succeeding right now partially because they are the “exception”, an alternative to the mainstream. If everyone joins Charter schools, they will lose that cache, that exclusivity and sparkle that underlies their mission and helps them raise funds and attract glowing media attention. Additionally, many Charter schools are allowed to select their students in a way that public schools aren’t – the latter are obligated to serve everyone within their boundaries, even when they are stretched beyond capacity or have inadequate resources.

Secondly, I would assert that depending on a few highly educated souls who are willing to work for a pittance is not a solution for public education at large. I have a good friend who works at one such Charter school. She is highly qualified and well-compensated for her hours, but she only works part-time as a music teacher, a situation that will never change since her charter school schedules its academic courses in the morning and its art classes in the afternoon (that way, all employees are part-time). In a public school, she would work full-time (possibly travelling between two or three schools, but she’d have a full-time salary), would have health benefits and would be participating in the state retirement system. After five years of working for this charter school, she is faced with an impossible dilemma: does she continue to make a meager living out of the sheer love of education? Or, does she eventually want to be able to afford a moderate standard of living – one exhibited by her students’ families-including having health insurance?

It seems to be deeply embedded in our culture that teachers should be some kind of ascetic, noble saints with no material aspirations of their own - as if demanding a living wage is gross selfishness on their part. It’s almost as if our society believes that to pay teachers a professional wage would somehow degrade their civic mission, that money would soil the purity of their calling. I would argue instead that by paying low wages, society tells its future college students that to become a teacher is to sell oneself short, that to teach is not a “real” job.

Further, I question whether it is in the best interest of the schools - Charter or public- and the communities they serve to have mini waves of idealistic Ivy League grads who flit in for a few years of “playing teacher” before moving on to bigger and better things.

Two parts of this widely-held belief don’t sit right with me. For one thing, why do we assume that graduates from expensive and internationally acclaimed schools automatically will be able to make a more lasting impact on students’ lives – especially impoverished students in broken communities- than teachers who come from those communities? These elite universities deserve their accolades, but most of their accomplishments lie in more prestigious scientific fields and not in education. We need improved pedagogy across the board at ALL of our state universities instead of relying on some magical way to lure these brilliant and selfless stars from the East Coast to come serve in our community for a year or two. While these graduates do have something valuable to give from their hearts, we need sustainable educational policy and not charity depending on students wealthy enough to take a few years off.

Additionally, we need teachers who are going to put down roots in their community, who will have a stake in the big picture and who will be intimately familiar with the neighborhood and district’s needs. Yes, there are teachers who “should have retired a long time ago” or who are simply warming the seat and climbing the pay scale without making a difference in their students lives, but their presence should be a call to professionalize the field instead of doing quite the opposite by treating the career as a community service year to be experienced and then abandoned.

Finally, are the lessons from Charter schools’ success applicable to the public school model? And if not, with the exception of a few inner-city success stories, are they just a way for disaffected middle class families to ensure that their kids get a private-school education on public dollars? And worse, what of the concern that they are siphoning public tax dollars away from the traditional public schools, thereby reinforcing the cycle that dooms public schools to fail? Many argue that the money should be put where it will have a higher success rate, and I agree – but is this merely a way to pass the buck onto private enterprise instead of having the civic and political conversations needed to address the core problems and challenges in educating our youth for the 21st Century?

As California deals with the local impacts of the global economic crisis, we need to think about our future leaders -- our youth. If we are serious about maintaining our country’s status in the world, we need to invest in our kids. And that means all of them.

We’ve allowed our students’ achievement and college preparedness to dwindle, with large gaps leaving minorities and students from poorer families at a disadvantage. As a society, we can’t afford to miss out on the potential of these young people. Our next great talents need to be nurtured, not left to fall through the cracks of a failing public school system.

The underperforming public school is practically a cliché, but a new option has emerged – charter schools. California’s 750 charter schools are typically small, focused academies that serve roughly the same mix of students enrolled in public schools. The state has added an average of fifty per year in the last decade, and charters currently serve about 276,000 students.

Charter schools are run more like businesses than like public institutions, which tends to make them more streamlined and freer to select the best teaching talent. If students are judged on the merit of their work, shouldn’t teachers be subject to the same? The clout of teachers’ unions has led to undue protections for teachers who don’t teach well, and charter schools have found a way to circumvent their influence.

From my own experience, I can definitely see the logic of this. I grew up in a good public school system, but I ran into the occasional Very Bad Teacher. I have distinct memories of one teacher who told stories about his life for more than half the class. We wondered why we even bothered to do the homework if he wasn’t even going to discuss it. He seemed completely disinterested in the students, and my guess is that he had institutional protections that let him keep his job. But for us, the 14-year-olds who were there to learn trigonometry, the class caused us to waste 45 minutes a day and feel unprepared for the next level of math.

In a charter school, that teacher would have been let go, just like an underperforming worker would in a private company.

Once they recruit passionate, top-level teachers, charter schools prioritize one-on-one time with students, often utilizing highly talented graduates of top colleges who are willing to work for relatively low pay before going on to other careers. There’s just something about the energy of a charter, the feeling that you really can make a difference in a child’s life, that motivates these young teachers. For example, the Match School in Boston, a star of the charter school movement, convinces graduates of top universities to live in a dormitory and work for a minimal stipend in order to give disadvantaged urban students a chance to go to college.

But demanding more doesn’t necessarily smooth your path. Last year, Match had problems with students leaving just before graduation for a public school because they were not going to meet the charter’s tougher requirements. This led to questions of whether the school was asking too much of its students, even if, by and large, it paid off.

By going against the grain, California’s charter schools will undoubtedly face similar challenges, but their record so far is impressive. Studies show that charters do a better job of improving students’ Academic Performance Index (API) scores and have made more progress toward closing the achievement gap between African-American and Caucasian students.

In addition to working more closely with students, charter schools tend to bring parents into the loop. They keep in touch with families and let them know if a child is not performing at his or her potential.

Because of this support network, students at charter schools are more likely to absorb the values that their adult role models are imparting to them, learning to be self-reliant and responsible.

They may not be for everyone, but the charter school is a great alternative to the traditional public school. By escaping the bureaucracy and red tape of the current system and running more on merit and innovation than on seniority and age-old practices, these new schools are surprising parents, children and legislators by showing a new possible path toward closing California’s educational achievement gap. More funding for these innovative academies would be a step in the right direction for the state’s most disadvantaged youth.

My blog is part of a month-long series on education in California,
published in partnership with the University of Phoenix and The WIP's publishing platform
Six Apart. WIP Executive Editor Katharine Daniels is also participating.
Be sure to look for both of our articles, as features and Talk blogs each Monday in March.

Happy International Women's Day!

On Thursday night I was fortunate enough to see A Powerful Noise! The film profiles three women from three different parts of the world: Hanh of Vietnam, Nada of Bosnia, and Jacqueline (aka “Madame Urbain”) of Mali. Hanh, Nada, and Madame Urbain all run community-based organizations that improve the lives of women. Each woman is so incredibly inspirational!

I often find myself overwhelmed by daily news reports; the world’s problems seem so vast and overwhelming. But after leaving the movie, I felt a renewed sense of optimism. Individual women do have the power to change the world!

Here's a YouTube I made to encourage all of the girls who may one day run for high office and all of the boys who may one day vote for them. It celebrates women leaders worldwide and a few of the women who have run for president in the US. If you know a teacher or youth leader, please forward this as a way of observing Women's History Month. Thanks.

This Thursday, March 5th, A Powerful Noise will be shown at 450 theaters nationwide! The event is part of International Women’s Day. I will be attending the screening and townhall discussion in Emeryville, CA. It will be an awesome experience, so if you're free on Thursday find a screening near you!