California Students Rise Up Against Massive Education Cuts
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Californians by the tens of thousands spoke as one yesterday demanding the primacy of public education in the state’s budget. Up and down the state, students held scores of demonstrations, rallies, marches and teach-ins at governmental centers, universities, community colleges, high schools and elementary schools.
The actions come as the 2010-2011 budget process looms and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, after promising in January to increase education funding, instead cut $2.5 billion from education in his budget proposal.
In Sacramento, several thousand students, teachers and workers rallied on the steps of the Capitol building, spilling out over the grassy mall. They demanded state legislators and the governor fully fund public education and make it affordable and accessible to all.
State Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D) and Assembly Speaker Manuel Perez (D), as well as several other legislators, pledged support for funding education. Assembly member Alberto Torrico (D) made a pitch for support of his bill that would create a 12.5 percent tax on oil extracted in the state to raise $2 billion a year for public education. He noted that California is the only state in the nation that doesn’t charge such a fee and that oil companies shouldn’t be getting off the hook while education suffers.
Trumka Named to Obama Economic Advisory Panel
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AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka has been named to the new economic advisory panel that will serve as President Obama’s team of experts.
In announcing creation of the panel last year, Obama said the group will prevent policy from being made in an echo chamber in Washington.
Trumka will join a who’s who list of top economists, corporate executives and academics. The White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which is modeled after the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board used by President Eisenhower in the 1950s, will be chaired by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker.
