La Comadre applauds Governor Newsom’s Proposed $15 Billion for Schools Plan. It’s About Damn Time!

13May
by La Comadre

Governor Newsom announced an incredible investment in public schools to help move public schools to be back to the top in the nation. Our public schools have been failing for generations and totally under-funded for decades. Having a huge investment in public schools is a critically important step to making our schools a priority. And we’re here to say- it’s about damn time! 

We have been advocating for high quality schools, more funds for our schools and systemic accountability for years. We recognize that funding has been limited previously but we must put the needs of families and students first. 

Our children have been denied a high quality education because of the dynamics of Covid. There are estimates that in LAUSD, for example, students were only receiving 2 hours of instruction per day. What can children learn in two hours? 

We must reverse the lack of investment in public education. We must also hold our friends accountable. These unprecedented investments propose to reduce class sizes, increase learning opportunities, improve access to after school programs, fund universal transitional kindergarten and critical wraparound mental health, social, and family services so critically needed to help parents and families as we begin to see the end of the pandemic. 

We celebrate these large amounts of money of social-emotional and mental health supports for families. We have been advocating for them for years. We know that our families have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19 both in its immediate and long-term impacts. Our communities have been disproportionately affected by this trauma, by the deaths in our families and communities and we must ensure that the services are provided to our community in both English and Spanish. Our families face economic insecurity, food insecurity and housing insecurity. On top of that, our Latino families have dealt with systemic racism against people of color and the bigotry against immigrant families. We stand in support of the Governor’s leadership. We thank him for finally making a commitment to these issues. And as we stand in support of this effort, we also call for systemic accountability. 

We must ensure that there is community input into the programs and that there is accountability for the services and money. We want to make sure that the money is spent responsibly, so that we can continue to make these kinds of investments for the long-term. We must ensure that no one can ever say that these kinds of investments don’t make an impact and that’s why we need to make sure that we measure their impact. We know they work and we want to have data to prove that we’re right when we advocate for this kind of investment.

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La Comadre

We are Moms, Tias, Ninas and Play-Tias who love children in our lives and we want to help every child succeed in school. Navigating schools and education—from preschool to college—is hard. We want to help each other with this. We are all in this together with you. We want to be a resource for you and for all of the children you love. Whether you need some info or you have info to share, you know where to go…LA Comadre.

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