This job requires someone who has an education background but also
understands the political process and knows how to get things done. And I'm
proud that in the last four years I've helped to provide another billion
dollars for early education, that I've been able to move money from the
criminal justice system and into K-12 education to do things, like restoring
you know good attendance for our students, which helps our kids you know
be ready to learn to read by third grade and actually puts dollars into our
school districts. And so, I think for someone like myself, who has served as a
school board member, who's been a classroom teacher, who's run after-school
programs, but has also used the political process to improve education, I happen to
think that that is the perfect blend of experiences. I was looking up at my 20s.
I was working in finance, and I just wasn't happy. You know the work I was
doing every day. I was just growing up and maturing as a person like you do, at
least for me, in the 20s some people maybe earlier, some later. I just realized
that I had to work on stuff I was passionate about. My work was so
disconnected from my values. That said, I had a different track. I went to your
service work abroad where I taught and Zimbabwe and in Thailand and really a
bauble in particular I just fell in love with the kids I was with and just
realized how much how many challenges that were in this world and this idea of
waiting till I was 60 or 70 to live out what I believe in which is that we got
to be here for each other I said I'm not doing that so then I eventually went
education because I'm a pretty kind of practical problem solver and so I said I
want to work domestically versus internationally and I believe in this
state in this country the most important issue that can actually help change the
most lives if the most solvable is public schools and that's what it meant
she led me into education full-time in 2002 I believe this state has not
prioritized public education in a truly meaningful deep way Eastern you know
times I've been paying attention most of my life time I'm 45 you know where
there's another way to kind of rationalize how the wealthy
state the nation can have some of the lowest performing public schools you
know our education system has been chronically underfunded for decades you
know California is 46 in the nation and per pupil spending even though we're the
fifth wealthiest economy in the world I'd like to see us within four years
move our per pupil spending to being within the top ten states and within
eight years be certainly number one I think that California students deserve
to be number one and I think that is something that I know that that will be
my top priority if I'm elected as State Superintendent of Public Instruction
well I think that we should do rather than create a two-tier compensation
structure is just pay everybody more pay teachers more pay principals more I've
looked at the research that looks at the idea of paying teachers more to try and
recruit them in a harder to serve areas and the research is very very mixed you
can do differentiated compensation you certainly have to bargain it but if
you're if you make the dollars from local funding actually follow the kids
right then I think what you'll see is you'll see more districts use some of
that money for teachers and principals right like to pay that are actually
teaching in our neediest schools
certainly in LA where I work we know that the current system leads to more
what are called must place teachers LA Unified has a much higher percentage of
what are called must place teachers and our lowest income schools or lowest
performing schools those are teachers that are forced there because they
aren't able to get their own jobs this law of disproportionate impacts our kids
of color and low-income kids let's let's move the communit let's try community
college system in our public schools while and see if it improves things and
let's have a strong data system to see it I think teacher tenure should be at
least three years I've said that I think what we should be doing though as it
relates to teacher tenure is changing the conversation so far the conversation
has been when is it okay to fire a teacher and I think if we're starting at
the firing at two years or three years we've waited too late we should be
talking about front-loading training and professional development for new
teachers when they start you give them training you give them a mentor and you
give them feedback early on and if a teacher is not doing well you give them
feedback early on so they have a chance to make a correction if they can't ever
make that correction at some point you have to have a hard conversation that
this just may not be the right profession for that person I think that
it should be fully transparent how those dollars are spent now there's no
question of that the whole purpose of the local control funding formula is to
give local people and ability to help direct where those dollars go now I
think some districts have been very creative and the types of programs that
they have created to help disadvantaged students and students in foster care and
English learners I think other districts have probably used these dollars to fill
holes that have existed some of that money is not being spent on the kids
that it's intended for so I think our implementation on equity has been very
short well we're gonna on day one I mean the current state superintendent made an
interpretation of the policy school districts asked can you use this money
for across-the-board raises and other district-wide expenses and they said yes
and so I'm gonna change that interpretation on day one what I've
talked about is us taking a pause on the growth of charters so that we can
examine what what can we possibly support and fund charter school law
hasn't been reviewed for decades I've not said moratorium because I think that
there are places where it makes sense to be able to still expand a charter school
I visited charter school on a Native American reservation that is providing
tremendous support for Native American students who were not well served in the
traditional public school system I was glad that the legislature and I'm long
overdue but finally passed the you know the ban on for-profit charters like that
and it was a tiny percentage of charters 3% but nonetheless it just doesn't it
doesn't make sense was glad that actually happened I think that I think
they've made progress on although I think you should just be done as more
transparency on charter school boards and leadership so like in our schools
at Green Dot we all we always followed the Brown Act and that just you know
should be there and kind of clarity on transparency and open meetings and no
conflicts of interest like that these are public schools absolutely should be
the case third is we should be more aggressive about intervening with
ineffective charters so the the rate that charter schools have been shut down
is much lower than it should be I'm honored to be supported by teachers you
know I'm an erase where I'm supported by teachers and my opponent is supported by
billionaires and so you know who do you want to be supported by but even in
spite of being supported by Teachers Union that doesn't mean that I'm just
gonna support whatever anybody asked for and if you I would ask that your viewers
to look at my my voting record and that there have been significant votes that
I've taken that had been opposite of what the teachers union has asked for
most recently we've just voted to make the school start date later for middle
school and high school kids the teachers union opposed that bill I supported it I
might have been the deciding vote for it passing it passed with 41 votes and I
supported it because the research shows there's brain psychology that says for
older kids getting up a little later and getting more sleep helps them to be more
successful helps them to be involved in fewer car accidents and transport to
school why wouldn't I do the thing that is best for kids if you look at my
agenda the vast majority of my agenda is focus on how do you support teachers in
principle that's the most important thing in schools you know like I want to
actually pay teachers more overtime can't do it right away but I do think
right away we can do free college if you commit to teach for five years or more
like that's a meaningful strategy I do want to quickly move on improving our
teacher training programs because they're still there just behind in the
past so we have our teachers more prepared to be successful help improve
retention at schools by providing more supports to teachers
those things are strongly aligned with with CTA I believe in giving a lot of
innovative flexibility you know to teachers in the classroom we do have
disagreements on nonprofit charter schools we have disagreements on I think
that the laws around seniority based layoffs and tenure need to be adjusted I
believe we have the differentiate pay for low income schools
the way I think how to deal with it is I'm gonna call them the day after you
know I win this election and let them know what I've told in today like I'm
working like we have to work together you have to work with labor at scale to
improve our schools we're gonna try to work on pieces of work we have strong
alignment the teacher shortage is one area where there's strong alignment on
solving that problem getting more supports for teachers more effective
principals the first thing we did in all of our schools and make sure the strong
principal because they're the most important person to actually support
teachers at a school site there's strong alignment there and then but also be
willing to you know when need be working with the equity coalition and others
respectfully disagree on issues like we like we're gonna I mean there's
seniority based layoffs it hurts low-income kids there's just no
getting around it and so that's something where if if they don't adjust
their opinions than we are at odds
you