Above are interviews and other videos I’ve been collecting from participants over the last two days

Quote of the Day:
“What is wrong with us that we can’t pay teachers what they are worth and we imprison children. If you don’t get educated, you will be prison-bound.” — Debbie Look, president of the California PTA

After all the excitement of the day before (most of which I missed), today was accounted by most to be more calm. To me, it felt similar to the day before, with trips back to law makers to present them with new information on the day’s focus, books not bars, and our partners the parents. How do these two things, education cuts and prison spending, come together?

One of the figures  pointed out by some of the parent speakers is sobering … the state will spend more than $200,000 per year for a youth in prison and under $8,000 a year for youths attending public schools. That’s good money chasing after bad, as the saying goes. When we ignore education, and don’t invest in it’s maintenance, it’s like skipping oil changes with your car, you will pay for that down the road.

I was very happy to see Harkness Elementary parent, Lucianna Beltran speak as well about her experiences volunteering in her child’s class, and the difficulties she sees with some of the class-size increases being proposed. Put simply; too many kids, will lead to too many problems for the teacher to deal with effectively.