Education Advocates Flood San Carlos

Local education advocates bested the rainy weather Monday night and turned out en masse to the San Carlos School District Office on the campus of Central Middle School in order to show support for an effort to raise money for the state public school system.

The organization Educate Our State hosted the function which brought a crowd of about 100 people, most of who were parents, interested in learning more about how the California education system is affected by the ongoing budget deficit, and what can be done to change it.

Speakers representing Educate Our State said that it is in the best interest of those in favor of public schools receiving more funding from the state to rally support of powerful lobbyist groups in Sacramento if they want to see real change in the state legislature.

"Interest groups drive policy," said Ted Lempert, a former state assemblyman who is now an education advocate with the group Children Now.

There is no unified voice in the state legislature to advocate for students currently. And if there is hope for change, all groups with the interest of children in mind should rally together, said Lempert.

To achieve this goal, he said that parents should turn to their network of friends and associates within the school system, as well as professional colleagues and others, in order to spread the word for the need for more funding from the state government to public schools.

"My goal is simple, I want my kids to have a better life than I had," said Lempert.

And he continued that the same desire is shared among all parents, which could be a powerful rallying cry for education advocates.

Educate Our State has held similar rallies in the interest of calling for more state funding to local schools. Earlier this year hundreds of supports joined together in Redwood City to promote a similar message to state lawmakers that the public education system needed more financial support.

In May, the rally in Redwood City surrounded an effort to gain support for legislators to proposed tax extensions to voters that would provide an ongoing funding source for the public school system.

That effort failed, as lawmakers and Governor Jerry Brown were unable to come to an agreement on the tax extensions during the budget dealmaking process, which effectively killed hope of allowing voters to weigh in on the issue.

The issue of local school funding issues are especially important in San Carlos and Redwood City because those two city school are able to spend the least amount of money per student on an annual basis of any other district in San Mateo County, according to data presented at the rally.

The two districts each spend between approximately $5,000 and $6,000 per student each year. Meanwhile, the Woodside Elementary School District is able to spend about $17,000 per student, according the the data from the rally.

And Redwood City School District Board of Trustee member Shelly Masur broke down the inequality of those amounts.

"I don't begrudge the kids in Woodside," she said. "I just believe the kids in Redwood City and San Carlos deserve to have the same amount spent on them."

Since the state government is increasingly unable to provide school districts the money necessary to fund core programs such as art, music and physical education, local advocacy groups are forced to backfill that funding gap with privately raised money.

But Masur said she does not believe it is the responsibility of education foundations and local parcel taxes to support the funding for such programs. Rather she said she believes that is the responsibility of the state government.

Her sentiments were echoed by Seth Rosenblatt, Governing Member of the San Carlos School Board, who pointed his finger at the source of the funding crisis for public schools at the hypocrisy of existing legislation that has developed over the course of about the past 40 years.

"The system wasn't really designed. And frankly, no one is happy with it," he said.

Those interested in finding out more about Educate Our State, click here.