News Flash!
LAST WEEK GOV. KATE BROWN SIGNED THE STUDENT SUCCESS ACT!!!
In my advocacy work for a Net Zero World, I have spent most of my time speaking to lawmakers about and marching for climate justice, most recently to pass a cap and invest program (House Bill 2020) for Oregon to price pollution, cut greenhouse emissions and fund a clean climate economy. Last Wednesday, we stood with our daughters and 25,000 teachers from all over Oregon who walked out of their classrooms to assemble on the banks of the Willamette in Portland and speak up for passage of the Student Success Act (House Bill 3427). Thousands more educators and their friends did the same in towns and cities across the State. Some, like Erin and Amy, from the Beaverton School District, agreed to go without pay if the District agreed to use the money saved to re-fund some of the jobs due to vanish from another round of cuts next fall.
What I found at the teacher’s rally came in a blinding flash of the obvious: We might as well have been rallying for a livable climate. I could have carried the same sign I made last fall for another climate march, featuring a photo of our 10-month-old grandson. Both pieces of legislation, one for educational equity and the other for climate justice are among the most important our State has scene in decades. They are both about fixing systems and empowering those on the margins who’ve had least to do with creating the chaos in those systems. THEY ARE BOTH ABOUT OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE!!!!
As in all demonstrations of late, the signage was priceless. If this time of dangerous opportunity since 2016 is remembered for nothing else it could be remembered for the creativity and truth of signs. “Class Size Matters! My School Is Losing 1/3 of It’s Teachers.
If U Kepe Hurtn EduKaton More Sines Wil Lok Like Disk! W.T.F. Where’s The Funding?”
One of my favorites beside the signs Erin (center of first photo) created was:
Things are bad! Criminally bad! Since passing Measure 5 in 1991, putting a limit on property taxes, we have been neglecting our children’s futures in the most callous way. We’ve gutted school funding, cut out everything but the (so called) 3R’s and laid off teachers. Our classroom sizes have increased into the 30’s and 40’s while more and more of our students rely on free school breakfasts and lunches as the only good nutrition they get in their young lives.
But finally, even after Republican Senators tried to hold up the legislation by disappearing for almost a week, the Student Success Act passed both houses of the Oregon Assembly and yesterday the Governor signed it into law! Starting in 2020 it will raise revenue ($1 Billion/year) for Oregon’s public schools, placing a 0.57% tax on businesses that have more than a million dollars in Oregon sales. Money from the tax will be spent in 3 areas:
- 50% for grants to districts to raise graduation rates, reading levels and attendance.
- 20% for early childhood education.
- 30% for career-technical education and free meals for low-income students, etc.
Our daughter, Erin, loved school. She was blessed with excellent teachers in Alaska, Idaho and Oregon. In Corvallis, our house backed up to the playground of the elementary school she and her brother Joel attended. For whatever reasons, Erin didn’t do school bathrooms.
She learned to hold it. All day long she would hold it. We could see the outside doors of her school classrooms from our kitchen window. Everyday, as the last bell rang, echoing across the swings and four-square courts, we would watch her burst out of her classroom, run across the playground, into our backyard, into our house. In one motion, she dropped her backpack and homework assignments on the floor, sped down the hall and into the bathroom where she could finally let go! She could hold her pee all day!
Suffice it to say, Erin and many like her have grown up and become the teachers our children desperately need to survive and thrive in the environment we’ve handed them. I suspect many, like she, are still holding their pee all day, but courageously can no longer hold their tongues! Yes there were concessions, there always are. On Mother’s Day, Governor Brown finally convinced the Republicans to come out of hiding if the Democrats agreed to back off on gun control and vaccination legislation. This compromise is another assault on our children’s future, but this is what Democracy looks like in the Beaver State for now. We’re still working and waiting for the day the Governor will sign that Cap and Invest Bill (HB 2020, The Clean Energy Jobs Bill) into law. Then we will take another huge step toward a livable intelligent future for all our children.
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