Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education

Peter Greene is well-known as a blogger, a teacher, a columnist for Forbes, and a humorist. He taught in the public schools of Pennsylvania for nearly 40 years. He wrote this article at my request.

He wrote:

I believe in public education.

I believe in the promise that every child should have a free quality education. And not by going out to shop for it, to hunt it down like looking for deals on a toaster or a used car, nor to travel far from home to find it, nor to have to beg and apply and hope that the school will accept them, but to have it delivered to them in their own community without exception.

Not that we’ve always hit the bullseye in this country. Our system of tying school financing to housing leaves much to be desired. The same forces of racism and economic inequity that twist and turn our society as a whole also leave their mark on our education system. Those forces CONTINUE READING: Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and must be willing to bear the expenses of it.” —John Adams | janresseger

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and must be willing to bear the expenses of it.” —John Adams | janresseger

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and must be willing to bear the expenses of it.” —John Adams

The late political theorist Benjamin Barber believed that the American system of public schools—schools located in every community, schools accessible to all, schools paid for by the public—are the heart of our U.S. democracy. And he worried that school privatization and consumerist school choice threaten to fragment our society:

“Through vouchers we are able as individuals, through private choosing, to shape institutions and policies that are useful to our own interests but corrupting to the public goods that give private choosing its meaning.  I want a school system where my kid gets the very best; you want a school system where your kid is not slowed down by those less gifted or less adequately prepared; she wants a school system where children whose ‘disadvantaged backgrounds’ (often kids of color) won’t stand in the way of her daughter’s learning; he (a person of color) wants a school system where he has the maximum choice to move his kid out of ‘failing schools’ and into successful ones.  What do we get?  The incomplete satisfaction of those private wants through a fragmented system in which individuals secede from the public realm, undermining the public system to which we can subscribe in common. Of course no one really wants a country defined by deep educational injustice and the surrender of a public and civic pedagogy whose absence will ultimately impact even our own private choices… Yet aggregating our private choices as educational consumers in fact yields an inegalitarian and highly segmented society in which the least advantaged are further disadvantaged as the wealthy retreat ever further from the public sector.  As citizens, we would never consciously select such an outcome, but in practice what is good for ‘me,’ the educational consumer, turns out to be a disaster for ‘us’ as citizens and civic educators—and thus for me the denizen of an American commons (or what’s left of it).” (Consumed, p. 132)

Tom Ultican is retired from a career teaching mathematics and physics at the public Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach, California.  A prolific California teacher-blogger, Ultican recently described what he learned about the important role of public schools in the small CONTINUE READING: “The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and must be willing to bear the expenses of it.” —John Adams | janresseger

Widespread Attacks on Voting Rights and Attempts to Privatize Public Schools Together Threaten Democracy | janresseger

Widespread Attacks on Voting Rights and Attempts to Privatize Public Schools Together Threaten Democracy | janresseger

Widespread Attacks on Voting Rights and Attempts to Privatize Public Schools Together Threaten Democracy

In Friday’s NY Times, columnist Jamelle Bouie reflected on Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock’s first speech on the Senate floor:

“Warnock is the first African-American to represent Georgia in the Senate and only the second elected from the South since Reconstruction. His presence on the Senate floor is historic just on its own.  It represents progress—and yet it is also evocative of the past. A Black lawmaker from the South, urging his mostly white colleagues to defend the voting rights of millions of Americans is, to my mind, an occasion to revisit one particular episode in the history of American democracy: the fight in Congress over the Civil Rights Act of 1875.”

Bouie summarizes what was in this bill, proposed by Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner in a Reconstruction Congress right after the Civil War: “As originally written, Sumner’s bill would, ‘Secure equal rights in railroads, steamboats, public conveyances, hotels, licensed theaters, houses of public entertainment, common schools, and institutions of learning authorized by law, church institutions, and cemetery associations incorporated by national or State authority; also on juries in courts, national and State.'” In 1871, the bill was repeatedly blocked in committee, but Senator Sumner reintroduced it in modified form in 1873: “This revised bill added a clause that stated that ‘no citizen of the United States shall, by reason of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, be excepted or excluded from full and equal enjoyment’ of ‘common schools and public institutions of learning, the same being supported by moneys derived from general taxation or authorized by law.'”

School integration held up the bill’s passage, however, and when it finally passed in 1875, “It did so without the schools clause.” “It was the schools clause that proved especially CONTINUE READING: Widespread Attacks on Voting Rights and Attempts to Privatize Public Schools Together Threaten Democracy | janresseger

DEREK BLACK: Old ideas, not new ones, are the key to education — and democracy - kappanonline org

Old ideas, not new ones, are the key to education — and democracy  - kappanonline.org

Old ideas, not new ones, are the key to education — and democracy 

Protecting public education requires us to return to the ideals on which our country was founded. 

Public education as we know it is in trouble and, with it, so is our democracy. Rather than seeing it as a solution to segregation, inequality, and division, many now claim that the idea of public schooling itself is the problem. “Government schools,” as some pejoratively call them, deny families freedom and ought to be abandoned for the private market.   

Fully appreciating the danger of this rhetoric and the policies it is producing requires us to look backward, and beyond schools themselves to the history of the nation’s major democratic and constitutional developments. The nation, in its infancy, built its concept of democracy around public education, and, following the Civil War, public education — alongside the right to vote — became the cornerstone of the recovery of the war-torn nation. For that reason, those who would overthrow democracy have sought to attack public education, particularly during Jim Crow segregation. The lessons found in this history, more than the heated rhetoric of the present day, should inform our current approach to strengthening our schools.  

Founding gifts 

Two hundred years ago, our founding fathers gave us two gifts, both of which were relatively unknown to the world at the time. The first was democracy — what they called a republican form of government. The second was public education. These gifts were inextricably intertwined. 

A republican form of government would allow everyday people to govern themselves through elected representatives. Our founders knew what it was like to live under a king, and they wanted something radically different for themselves, their families, and the generations that would follow. Of course, by denying African Americans, women, and many poor whites the right to vote, the founders failed to live up to their lofty ideals. But those ideals, though flawed in their initial implementation, were compelling enough to take root and bear fruit for generations to come.  

The nation, in its infancy, built its concept of democracy around public education.

CONTINUE READING: Old ideas, not new ones, are the key to education — and democracy  - kappanonline.org

Democracy and Education | tultican

Democracy and Education | tultican

Democracy and Education

By Thomas Ultican 12/19/2020

Democracy and free universal public education are foundational American ideologies. They have engendered world renowned success for our experiment in government “by the people”. Two new books – Schoolhouse Burning by Derek Black and A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire – demonstrate that these principles which were integral to the American experiment are shockingly under serious attack by wealthy elites.

After his father Fred died in 1967, Charles Koch took a disparate set of assets – a cattle ranch, a minority share in an oil refinery and a gas gathering business – and stitched them together. Today it is the second largest privately held corporation in the world. In the excellent 2019 book, Kochland, Christopher Leonard states, “Koch would eventually build one of the largest lobbying and political influence machines in US history.”

Both the introduction to A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door and the “Through History’s Eyes” chapter of Schoolhouse Burning mention the same quote from Charles Koch. In 2018, the Koch network held its annual three day gathering near Palm Springs, California. It was a 700-person confab of some of the richest people in America. Black wrote,

“Charles Koch told the audience that ‘we’ve made more progress in the last five years than I had in the last 50…. The capabilities we have now can take us to a whole new level…. We want to increase the effectiveness of the network … by an order of magnitude. If we do that, we can change CONTINUE READING: Democracy and Education | tultican

Andrea Gabor: We Need Civics Education! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Andrea Gabor: We Need Civics Education! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Andrea Gabor: We Need Civics Education!

Andrea Gabor, the Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at Baruch College of the City University of New York, writes here about the importance of civics education, especially in a time when democracy is under attack by a defeated president and the leadership of the Republican Party.

Put Civics Back in the Classroom, Right Now

Has there ever been a better time to resume lapsed efforts to teach young Americans the structure and purpose of U.S. democracy?

By Andrea Gabor

The presidential election seemed to mark a revival in American civic engagement. A record two-thirds of the electorate voted. Candidates raised at least $3 billion in small-dollar donations, and historic get-out-the-vote efforts had an impact in Nevada, Georgia and elsewhere.

Yet large numbers of Americans appear to believe President Donald Trump’s baseless charges of election fraud. Civic life and discourse have been eroded by the normalization of lying by elected leaders, the CONTINUE READING: Andrea Gabor: We Need Civics Education! | Diane Ravitch's blog 

CURMUDGUCATION: Schooling For Democracy (Or What Is Education For)

CURMUDGUCATION: Schooling For Democracy (Or What Is Education For)

Schooling For Democracy (Or What Is Education For)

I just read a piece that doesn't necessarily say anything new, but puts it all in a useful frame. Let me show you the first paragraph:

There’s no such thing as a “good school” in the abstract. Every school serves a particular community, in a particular time and place, with its own needs and desires. A good school in rural Montana might not be a good school in Midtown Manhattan, just as a good school in 1920 might not be a good school today. This doesn’t mean that we can’t define school quality. It does, however, mean that we can’t define quality without first considering the needs of a school’s time and place.

This is from the Phi Delta Kappan, a publication I don't always trust (hell, they give a platform to William Bennett), written by Jon Valant, a fellow at the Brooking Institution, a place that often demonstrates why economists should stay the heck away from education policy. "Good schools for a troubled democracy" has the hallmark of Brookings writings, a sort of odd atonality tied to the sensation that perhaps within Brookings they never actually read any of the mountains of prose about education policy. 

Valant's thesis is that "the school system we have today in the United States--and our conception of a good school--is mismatched to the needs of our time." This will make more sense if you don't think of yourself as included in "we" and "our." His basic framing of modern education history is what makes this piece worthwhile. 

Valant focuses on the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, the infamous Reagan era hit job on public education. While Valant notes that the report did mention the needs for education to create better citizens, "the rhetoric of economic ruin and international competition drowned out the message." 

According to the logic of the times, the nation’s most pressing need — and, consequently, the most urgent task for our public CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Schooling For Democracy (Or What Is Education For)

NANCY BAILEY: Education Unity? Save Democratic Public Schools!

Education Unity? Save Democratic Public Schools!

Education Unity? Save Democratic Public Schools!

Congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris! How refreshing to hear a President speak of uniting the country and saving America’s democratic institutions.

One of the largest institutions is the public school system, run by local school boards, supported by the states, with oversight and administration by the federal government.

President Biden could reach out to Republicans and Democrats regarding public education by recognizing the greatest threat to democracy involving schools that we have witnessed for years, the corporate influence, and the takeover of the institution itself.

Understanding the stakes of losing this great institution is imperative. Both the Democratic and Republican leadership has been complicit for years in undermining the public’s wishes when it comes to CONTINUE READING: Education Unity? Save Democratic Public Schools!

When Jesus Needs A Visitor's Badge: Church-State Issues In Public Education | Blue Cereal Education

When Jesus Needs A Visitor's Badge: Church-State Issues In Public Education | Blue Cereal Education

When Jesus Needs A Visitor's Badge: Church-State Issues In Public Education

A “Hall of Separation”

That’s a horrible title and I wish I could stop thinking it’s not.

As you probably know, given that it’s pretty much all I talk about these days, I’ve been researching Supreme Court cases involving issues of church-state separation in relation to public education. My hope is to have something ready before the entire system collapses and any benefit one may derive from it is no longer relevant.

Given the state of the 2020 elections as I post this, I’m probably way too late.

Nevertheless, I’ve been wrong before. Democracy may cough and bleed its way through another generation or so in some form, in which case I may sell as many as eleven copies of this lil’ liber sui generis. A few people may even find it helpful, enlightening – or at least mildly diverting.

Who am I kidding with all the humility? So far, it’s bloody brilliant and everyone will want seven copies just to show off.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share three of the books I’ve been reading as I continue researching my own. While the cases I’m including aren’t exactly obscure or difficult to document (most reached the Supreme Court, after all), the issues involved are often less universal than most “landmark” cases. Plus, as the subject suggests, most involve religion on some level. That means that while my trademark wit and brilliance will no CONTINUE READING: When Jesus Needs A Visitor's Badge: Church-State Issues In Public Education | Blue Cereal Education

100th Episode: A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door – Have You Heard

100th Episode: A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door – Have You Heard

100th Episode: A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door

Our long-awaited book, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, is finally (almost) out. To celebrate its publication, and the 100th episode of Have You Heard, we asked an expert—a former lobbyist for a conservative free-market think tank—to read the book and tell us what we got right & wrong. His main takeaway: our predictions about the future aren’t bleak enough.

Complete transcript of the episode is here. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon or donate on PayPal.

Want a free, signed copy of Jack and Jennifer’s forthcoming book, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door? Sign up to host a virtual book group with 10 or more of your friends and colleagues and we’ll send you one!

Have You Heard · #100 A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door

100th Episode: A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door – Have You Heard

A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door

A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door Website - https://www.wolfattheschoolhousedoor.com/

“There’s no more time for tinkering around the edges.” — Betsy DeVos, 2018 “Rethink School” tour.

 

If America’s public schools don’t survive the COVID-19 pandemic, it won’t just be due to the virus. Opponents of public education have long sought to dismantle our system of free, universal, and taxpayer-funded schooling. But the present crisis has provided them with their best opportunity ever to realize that aim. Books like Jane Mayer’s Dark Money and Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains sounded a clear warning about the influence that right-wing plutocrats increasingly exert over American politics. Now, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door takes their analyses a step further, addressing an urgent question: Why is the right so fixated on dismantling public education in the United States? 

Education historian Jack Schneider and journalist Jennifer Berkshire trace the war on public education to its origins, offering the deep backstory necessary to understand the threat presently posed to America’s schools. The book also looks forward to imagine how current policy efforts will reshape the educational landscape and remake America’s future. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door offers readers a lively, accessible, yet scholarly view of a decades-long conservative cause: unmaking the system that serves over 90% of students in the U.S. With Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, and COVID-19 posing unprecedented threats to our already besieged public schools, the book could not be more timely.

Order Here

AFT warns Trump: We’ll take to the streets to defend democracy – People's World

AFT warns Trump: We’ll take to the streets to defend democracy – People's World

AFT warns Trump: We’ll take to the streets to defend democracy

WASHINGTON—The Teachers (AFT) will take to the streets, if necessary, to defend U.S. democracy during and after the Nov. 3 election, the 1.7-million-member union’s Executive Council announced. And their resolution makes clear the threat comes from GOP Oval Office occupant Donald Trump.

But it’s not just Trump, Protecting American Democracy, adds. It’s also his armed white nationalist supporters and GOP-run state legislatures and GOP governors who could override popular vote majorities against the White House denizen.

Further, AFT predicts the rest of the labor movement will be out in the streets, too, the council’s Oct. 26 resolution says.

“We will organize and participate in peaceful, nonviolent mass protests against any efforts to thwart free and fair elections and to undermine American democracy,” the union said in a statement elaborating on the resolution.

“When democracy is in danger, we will be in the streets and in our workplaces with our colleagues in the labor movement and allies in the community, defending it against its enemies—foreign and domestic.”

“We take very seriously any threat to the sanctity of our elections and the peaceful transfer of power,” union President Randi Weingarten, a New York City middle school civics teacher, explained. “It is our job as…most importantly, human beings, to defend democracy, which requires fighting for Americans’ right to vote and CONTINUE READING: AFT warns Trump: We’ll take to the streets to defend democracy – People's World

Betsy DeVos Still Doesn’t Get the Connection Between Democracy and Our System of Public Schools | janresseger

Betsy DeVos Still Doesn’t Get the Connection Between Democracy and Our System of Public Schools | janresseger

Betsy DeVos Still Doesn’t Get the Connection Between Democracy and Our System of Public Schools

A week ago, at one of the nation’s most conservative Christian colleges, Betsy DeVos delivered a vehement attack on the idea of public education. With the election coming up next week, we can hope it was the final attack on the institution of public schooling DeVos will deliver from per perch as U.S. Secretary of Education.

In a column last Wednesday, the Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss describes DeVos’s Hillsdale College address: “In 2015, billionaire Betsy DeVos declared that ‘government really sucks’—and after serving nearly four years as U.S. education secretary, she has not tempered that view one iota.  She gave a speech this week at a Christian college disparaging the U.S. public education system, saying it is set up to replace the home and family. While blasting the government is nothing new for DeVos—critics see her as the most ideological and anti-public-education secretary in the Education Department’s 40-plus-year history—she gave what may be her fiercest anti-government polemic at the Hillsdale College event in her home state…. She explained how her philosophy was formed by Abraham Kuyper, a neo-Calvinist Dutch theologian-turned-politician who was prime minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905 and who believed that Protestant, Catholic and secular groups should run their own independent schools and colleges. The United States could fix its education system, she said, if it were to ‘go Dutch’ by embracing ‘the family as the sovereign sphere that is, a sphere that predates government altogether.'”

Strauss reprints DeVos’s Hillsdale College speech in its entirety. In it DeVos confides to her audience the secret she has learned while serving as our education secretary: “I assume most CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos Still Doesn’t Get the Connection Between Democracy and Our System of Public Schools | janresseger

VOTE NOW!!! | Bill Ayers (California Democratic Party Endorsements)

VOTE NOW!!! | Bill Ayers

VOTE NOW!!!

Voter suppression is as American as cherry pie.

The US is founded on war and conquest, land theft and forced removal, ethnic cleansing and genocide, kidnapping and a complex system of generational slavery based on African ancestry. Those are facts. None of the conquerors stopped and thought, Hmmmm…maybe Indigenous folks, or enslaved workers, or women should have a say in these matters. Ridiculous! It’s a settler-colonial system, and the founding documents are crystal clear: power will be exercised by and for the few.

And yet the struggle for the right to vote is steady and ongoing. And we should all be aligned with that effort because the right to vote is a fundamental principle worth fighting for—pause for a moment and note  that people here and all over the world have fought and died for that right. Universal suffrage is a righteous goal. 

Everyone who can vote should vote, and whether you can or cannot vote, you should stand on the side of universal suffrage. 

But don’t be confused: for me, while the right to vote is a principle, the act of voting is a tactic, and ought to be embedded in a strategy. 

That means coming to terms with the fact that you’re going to vote for a flawed, imperfect, infuriating, often-wrong-but-never-in-doubt candidate. But, hey, you’re not getting married (oh, and if you don’t know by now, even there, perfection is a fantasy) so vote.

You can recognize that issues of central importance—issues like war and peace, the unrestrained nature of finance capitalism, ending mass incarceration, or Medicare for All—are not on the ballot, and still vote. That’s because voting is neither the beginning nor the end of our political work, our  participation and responsibility—we still have 364 days to organize and agitate, participate in direct actions, mobilize masses of poor and working people, and create a powerful fire from below in order to get things done. Get up, go out, vote, and then go back to  work. 

Fundamental change comes when we walk on two legs: one, building the CONTINUE READING: VOTE NOW!!! | Bill Ayers

November 3, 2020 General Election

Sacramento Democratic Party Endorsements:

Endorsements as of September 10, 2020.

COUNTY OFFICES

County of Sacramento 

Board of Supervisors, District 3 – Gregg Fishman

CITY OFFICES

City of Elk Grove

City Council, District 1 – Ali Moua

City Council, District 3 – Maureen Craft

City of Folsom

City Council – Jaya Badiga

City of Rancho Cordova (vote for 3)

City Council – Jack Zwald

City Council – Donald Terry*

City Council – Siri Pulipati

City of Sacramento

City Council, District 2 – Allen Warren*

City Council, District 8 – Mai Vang

SCHOOL DISTRICT OFFICES

Center Joint Unified School District

At-Large – Julia Bellehumeur

Elk Grove Unified School District

Area 1 – Regina Q. Banks

Area 3 – NO ENDORSEMENT

Area 6 – Nancy Chaires Espinoza*

Folsom Cordova Unified School District

Area 2 – NO ENDORSEMENT

Area 4 – Christopher Clark*

Los Rios Community College District

Area 3 – Chris Yatooma

Area 4 – Kelly Wilkerson

Area 5 – Pamela Haynes*

Area 7 – Tami Nelson*

Natomas Unified School District (vote for 2)

At-Large – Ericka Harden

At-Large – Mariana Corona Sabeniano

Robla Elementary School District

At-Large – Sharona Devine

Roseville Joint Union High School District

At-Large – Greg Harnage

Sacramento City Unified School District

Area 3 – Jose Navarro

Area 4 – Nailah Pope-Harden

Area 5 – Chinua Rhodes

Area 7 – Lavinia Grace Phillips

San Juan Unified School District (vote for 2)

At-Large – Pam Costa*

At-Large – Paula Villescaz*

SPECIAL DISTRICT OFFICES

American River Flood Control District

At-Large – Tamika L’Ecluse*

Cosumnes Community Services District

Area 4 – Orlando Fuentes*

North Highlands Recreation and Park District

At-Large – Beau Reynolds

Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD)

Ward 1 – Brandon Rose*

Ward 2 – Nancy Bui-Thompson*

Ward 5 – Rob Kerth*

LOCAL BALLOT MEASURES

City of Sacramento

Measure A – Vote NO
Stop the power grab — this measure would disempower our neighborhoods by concentrating power in the mayor.

Measure B – Vote YES
Extends deadline for city’s independent redistricting commission to complete drawing of new district maps.

Measure C – Vote YES
Protects working families by preventing rent gouging and ensuring that families can stay in their homes.

River Delta Unified School District

Measure J – Vote YES
Authorizes up to $45.7 million in bonds for school facilities in the southern part of River Delta USD (generally includes Isleton and Rio Vista).

Measure K – Vote YES
Authorizes up to $14.6 million in bonds for school facilities in the northern part of River Delta USD (generally includes Clarksburg, Courtland, Hood, Locke, Walnut Grove).

City of Isleton

Measure L – Vote YES
Extends by 5 years existing 1⁄2-cent general sales tax that is set to expire in 2022.

City of Citrus Heights

Measure M – Vote YES
Enacts new 1-cent general sales tax permanently.

City of Rancho Cordova

Measure R – NEUTRAL
Enacts a new 1⁄2-cent general sales tax permanently.

—

California Democratic Party Endorsements:

The following are California Democratic Party endorsements for federal and state offices in Sacramento County:

FEDERAL OFFICES

U.S. President/U.S. Vice President

Joe Biden/Kamala Harris

U.S. Representative

District 3 – John Garamendi*

District 6 – Doris Matsui*

District 7 – Ami Bera*

District 9 – Jerry McNerney*

STATE OFFICES

State Senate

District 1 – Pamela Swartz

District 3 – Bill Dodd*

District 5 – Susan Talamantes Eggman

State Assembly 

District 6 – Jackie Smith

District 7 – Kevin McCarty*

District 8 – Ken Cooley*

District 9 – Jim Cooper*

District 11 – Jim Frazier*

STATEWIDE BALLOT MEASURES

State Propositions

Proposition 14 – Vote YES
Invests in critical, life-saving stem cell research by approving continued funding for research.

Proposition 15 – Vote YES
Invests in our schools and communities by closing a special tax loophole for wealthy property owners.

Proposition 16 – Vote YES
Allows for more diversity in public education, employment, and contracting by repealing discriminatory law.

Proposition 17 – Vote YES
Restores the voting rights of Californians who made a mistake but have already paid back their debt to society.

Proposition 18 – Vote YES
Expands voting rights in primary elections to 17-year olds who will be able to vote in the general election.

Proposition 19 – Vote YES
Protects seniors and survivors of wildfires from facing increased property tax when needing to move to a new home.

Proposition 20 – Vote NO
Increases criminalization of our communities by irresponsibly prioritizing punishment over rehabilitation.

Proposition 21 – Vote YES
Keeps families in their homes by protecting them against eviction or rent gouging, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

Proposition 22 – Vote NO
Allows billion-dollar app companies like Uber to get a special exemption in law to keep exploiting their workers.

Proposition 23 – Vote YES
Helps dialysis patients by combatting poor hygiene in clinics, improving staffing, and ending discrimination.

Proposition 24 – NEUTRAL
Adopts new privacy law relating to the use of privacy consumer data.

Proposition 25 – Vote YES
Approves law passed by our state legislature to reform bail system to ensure that no one sits in jail for inability to pay.