Children of the Recession: The Education Blame Game

In connection with Katie Couric's CBS reporting on Children of the Recession, SV Mom's Blog is dedicating all of today's posts to personal accounts of how the recession is affecting their contributors and their families.  The following is my story:

Sacramento is a sinkhole.  The more tax dollars we contribute, the more our futures get sucked down into their soiled, political toilet.  Los Angeles' sales tax is at an astonishing 9.25%.  Parking meter rates have doubled.  Living in this city has become impossible if not downright imbecile.   The cost of living here is skyrocketing, while the quality of our social services, employment, the value of our homes, are plummeting.  And our children, by way of having their education budgets slashed and burned, are the most innocent victims in all this political infighting and incompetence. 

Both of my children go to public school.  We have an active and generous parent body, more so than many schools in the LAUSD, nevertheless, I still watch from the front lines as our most  promising new teachers are fired, as our Assistant Principal is let go, as our already parent--funded programs such as art, music, drama, and P.E. are threatened, because those monies have to be diverted to hire additional teachers to keep class size down and other necessities, that should be, and have previously been, funded by the government and district.

On May 15, I participated in a parent rally called The Lemonade Initiative.  The idea came to three moms while watching their sons' baseball game, and within two weeks time, they mobilized over 200 local parents to speak out against the budget atrocities.  The rally was covered by CNN, NPR, the LA TIMES and others.  With their voices, they urged the Superintendent of their school district to come out and hear their complaints about wasteful spending and demands for smarter, more long-term solutions.  (To see a full list of their complaints and demands, go to www.lemonadeinitiative.com).

One newscaster, while covering the budget crisis, the looming teacher's strike and the parent rally, had the nerve to pose this editorial question to the parents, on air,

(please click here to read the rest of the article on LA Mom's Blog)

Thank you.