Eduardo Vargas enrolled at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park during the fall of 2011 looking to help his financially troubled family, but then found he had to wrestle with a problem he had not foreseen: a crippled community college system.
Parents manage a huge pile of details to guide their children’s education. What, then, happens when a recession hits, state education funding is drastically cut, class sizes reduced, parents are called upon to replace library staff and you’re worried that the teacher who provided crucial support for your special needs student may be laid off?
In the spring of 2008, Underwood was an eager and popular young assistant band director at a high school in Moreno Valley, a suburban enclave in Riverside County, but the first clouds of what would soon be called the Great Recession were gathering in New York — and were clearly visible to Underwood.
Four years ago California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 30 and rescued public schools and community colleges from the Great Recession’s economic free-fall. But the measure is scheduled to expire at the end of 2018, which could again place the state’s still-wobbly public schools on the edge of a fiscal precipice.
With good union training, wages and benefits, Cathy Nichols, a single mother, was able to provide for herself and her son without fear of impoverishment or medical calamity.
“Uncovered California” is a three-part series of stories and videos examining how the Golden State is trying to fill holes in its health care coverage.
Surveys suggest that somewhere in the region of one in four community college students will experience a diagnosable mental health problem at some point, but approximately 40% of them won’t seek timely help.
“Uncovered California” is a three-part series of stories and videos examining how the Golden State is trying to fill holes in its health care coverage.
UCLA’s John Rogers on the Struggle for Democratic School Improvement.
Figures are from 2009 through March, 2013. Sources: Parent Revolution; foundation tax returns; foundation grant reports. See “Public Schools, Private Agendas: Parent Revolution.”
Listen to Capital & Main’s Steven Mikulan interview Dan Flaming of The Economic Roundtable.
» Read more about: Capital & Main PODCAST with Dan Flaming »