Beach, U.C.S.D. and shopping!
Something unusual is that although we had a fun beachfront hotel, I didn't realize that both ASU and UofA were on spring break that week and almost every student (it seemed) was in San Diego partying while we were there. Obnoxious.
Then, on Wednesday, I headed down to Governor Brewer's office to chat with her and then her education policy chair, Karla Phillips. Interesting.
After that, Representative Vic Williams, from Tucson, took me around the House to meet Rep. Weiers and Rep Yee. I had a very interesting day. It's funny that the ultra conservatives feel that money will not help education. IN fact, I think they want to do away with public education all together. Schools cannot be purely capitalist. All students are entitled to a free and appropriate public education under the Constitution so we need to look at ways to fix the problem rather than cut all funding and try to force schools to be run as businesses. Kids matter. The future of our country depends on them. We need to make sure they ALL get what they need, not just the wealthy ones. Don't get me wrong,that is not to say that public education doesn't need some serious fixing; it does! There are plenty of things to fix: teacher certification, teacher qualification, teacher salaries, teacher accountability/evaluation, administration evaluation/accountability, teacher retention, testing, aligning to the new common core; I know the list is huge. Technology requires funding. If the new state test is to be done online, schools need thousands of dollars to equip the students with the computers they need. Anyway, keep supporting education; these kids are our future and they need to be prepared for a global economy.
Looks like so much fun! I wonder how you do it all and do you ever sleep?
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