Sandra Tsing Loh tries to keep track of all the rally-prep details

Author and performer Sandra Tsing Loh, an organizer of a rally scheduled for Tuesday at the Capitol to draw attention to the state's education budget, writes about the campout near Sacramento where families are preparing for the rally:

5:55 a.m., Monday, June 16

Victory! I managed to sleep in all the way until 5:55 a.m.! But of course, already up slicing oranges at dawn for 100 people was sister "Burning Mom" Betsy Lawlor (Highland Elementary, Riverside).  Betsy is one of the incredible crew of moms -- not that the dads aren't incredible, but moms definitely rule here -- who pop up at 5 a.m. to pee and to pace.  (Not to say there isn't a late-night crew: Last night, finishing up kitchen duty were "Cooking Mom" Hasmik Lalafarian (Valley Alternative, Van Nuys) and "Comedy Mom" Amy Hill (Ivanhoe, Los Angeles). I went to bed while they were still swabbing.) 

On my own overflowing 5 a.m. dreamscape in the rumpled RV were everything from directions to the California Railroad Museum for the "field trip" to how many a bale of alfalfa can seat (for the barn dance tomorrow) to whether the 100 kazoos that one of my TTFMs (Two Tall Funny Moms -- Erika Schickel (Canfield Avenue Elementary, Los Angeles) and Deb Vogel (Marengo Elementary, South Pasadena)) ordered will arrive. And, whether state Supt. of Education Jack O'Connell will bring his saxophone. Also, signage, such as: CLOVIS LOVES PUBLIC SCHOOL. Our barn dance caller Evo Bluestein is from Clovis. So, by interesting coincidence, is Republican leader Mike Villines, who, to balance the education budget, wants to cut administrative expenses instead of raising taxes. Even though there is a virtual horde of people making slicing-off-at-the-neck motions at me, I cannot lie: that latter part actually sounds interesting! Oh, for a meeting with Villines! Our current list includes such legislators as Julia Brownley, Lloyd Levine, Warren Furutani and more ... which I have written down on another piece of paper.

One of our fourth-graders from Lowell Elementary (Long Beach), in between running after the baby goats, asked his mom yesterday: "OK -- is this camp where we get to be hippies?"  She just laughed -- while vigorously hammering stakes into the ground next to the tie-dye area (These moms are amazing, they come with their own Peet's Coffee, which I think they can French press right out of a Honda Odyssey's ignition). That fourth-grader may have a point. A totemic item of "Camp Cool" is the box of 100 Peace and Protest songbooks, specially themed for the California Children's Rally (including "We Shall Overcome" with a public school verse). It was put together by Todd Crowley, who flew in all the way from Virginia to be here, autoharp in hand and willing to sleep, he said, if needed, "on the farmhouse floor." I love that quaint expression. I met Todd Crowley at the California Autoharp Gathering last month in Dunlap, the CAG being an amazing event generously supported by Fresno Unified. And also near ... Clovis. It's all about Clovis.

Then again, while outside are goats and guitars, in the control kitchen inside, where I'm typing now, the laptop overflows with e-mails from my "Power Moms" Rebecca Constantino (Edison Elementary, Santa Monica -- and the head of Access Books) and Quynh Nguyen (Encino Elementary, Encino), who keeps urging me to go into the campsite, rap on tents, and find out which schools people are from to make sure we electronically harangue all their legislators for an appointment tomorrow. 

All well and good, but first I have to find coffee. We have a restaurant-sized coffee maker ... but where are the pots? And the filters? Betsy Lawlor continues to poke into bags and boxes on the porch -- and it looks like I at least have the clarity of the very next pressing task of the day: Coffee!

Comments

[alan]

Sandra, Sandra, Sandra...

Really appreciate your passion. However, as the saying goes... you reap what you sow...

These cuts are directly necessitated by Prop 13. My mother-in-law in SF lives in a home currently valued at about $900k but pays taxes on only $60k. Less money for schools, so her kids (us) have to shell out our hard earned dollars for PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

If you really want to fix school funding, you have to re-open Prop 13.

Everything else is just a feel good time waster...

[Sandra Tsing Loh]

Alan, Alan, Alan. . .

On the one hand, I understand--if do not relate to--your gloomy cynicism. In a swath of the city that boasts magnet schools, charter schools, legendary gifted programs, and even "regular" schools such as Van Nuys High that routinely graduate kids into Harvard and Stanford, it must truly grate to pay non-tax-deductible private school tuition. And I hope you’re paying only one--two would truly be irrational. While public schools obviously see their share of budget cuts, donations made there amount to far less than private school tuition and, if made through an educational foundation, yield full tax benefits.

On the other hand, speaking of tax, I completely agree with you about Proposition 13. (My own father bought his house in Malibu in the 1960’s--you can imagine how little tax he pays!) However you parse the damage, in 2008 (the 30th anniversary of Proposition 13), while California is our ninth largest global economy, it is (by many measures) 48th in public school funding and a staggering 51st in public school libraries serving children ages 0 to 5 (behind Puerto Rico!). And yet, Proposition 13 is considered the third rail of California politics due to an older whiter electorate traditionally expected to vote down tax increases (and the legislators who support them) no matter what the social cost. Hence I believe the most logical act is not to sit in one’s armchair, TV clicker in hand, and hurl stones at grassroots movements but to actively foster the habits of informed, engaged, and creative citizenry in California residents with the longest expected lifespans--our children. It is they who are inheriting our state’s jerry-rigged financing mess: it’s they who will be voting, informing their communities, and running for office.

Alan, I’m not sure what values your children are learning in private school, or what you dream for them to be. For myself, I’m thrilled that my second grader and kindergartener got to speak at length with their assemblyman Lloyd Levine in Sacramento. In the decades to come, when their aging mother’s too tired and perhaps crashed in her armchair with her own TV clicker, it will be second nature for my girls to be out there fighting for a better California, because they know the world is theirs to change. Hence, I think our rally represented the best of what’s possible in a quality public education. . . which, as I’m sure you know, Thomas Jefferson felt was the cornerstone of a vibrant democracy.
All the best,
Sandra