Education Advocates Across California Join Forces
to Win Real Change
Advocates from San Diego to San Francisco met in Los
Angeles on March 12 for The Campaign for Quality Education
(CQE) Summit 2005: Building Power to Transform Education.
Sponsored by Californians
for Justice, Public
Advocates, and UCLA’s Institute
for Democracy, Education and Access (IDEA), the
Summit brought together student and parent leaders from
low-income and immigrant communities of color, educators,
policy advocates, academics, and policy makers to begin
a long term strategic planning and visioning process
for the CQE.
CQE, the statewide alliance of over 100 organizations
throughout California lead by Californians for Justice,
seeks to ensure that every child in the state has access
to a quality education. The campaign hopes this year
to stop the use of the California High School Exit Exam
as the only means to earn a diploma; ensure full implementation
of the Williams
v. State of California settlement; and reform
the school funding system. Participants at the summit
discussed the ways in which California schools are failing
to provide students with a quality education and shared
their ideas on how to work to win real changes in the
system. In addition, a very important piece of the Summit
was to educate parents and students about their rights
under the Williams settlement, a school funding
case filed in 1999 on behalf of a class of California
students who attended substandard schools.
The highlight of the Summit was the participation
of hundreds of students who have been organized across
the state to participate in the entire reform process.
In a frank discussion about their schools, students
stood up and discussed such inequities as the lack of
textbooks, enduring large class sizes where some students
didn’t even have desks to sit at, and unsafe school
buildings. These students, unwilling to accept these
conditions for their younger brothers and sisters and
future generations, have taken it upon themselves to
be their own voice and fight for real reform of the
California public school system.
In addition to this year’s goals, CQE continues
to develop its 5-issue framework of Tracking (college
access, disappearance rate, and unfair discipline),
Resources and Conditions, School Funding, Language and
Culture, and Power and Participation.
Prepared by Melissa Mangino, March 24, 2005
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