Fast 4 Education: Drastic Times Call for Drastic Measures

Fast 4 Education at the State Capitol: Drastic Times Call For Drastic Measures

by Dan Bacher

Six activists from West Contra Costa County, including one mother, two teachers, one student and two community members, are now on a water-only “Fast 4 Education” at the State Capitol to bring attention to the struggle for equitable education.

The activists started their fast on Monday, May 10 to demand that Proposition 98, passed by the voters in 1988, be fully funded. The Governor reduced Proposition 98 by $2 billion, gutting the budget of school districts throughout the state, according to the group.

The two other demands of Fast 4 Education, the same group that marched 70 miles from San Pablo to Sacramento in April, are:
• to eliminate the debt of the West Contra Coast County Unified School District (WCCUSD).
• to create equity in educational funding.

Wendy Gonzalez, a first year teacher in an elementary school in the district now on the fast, emphasized the deplorable condition of the schools.

“There is more support for the students in the street and the gangs than there is in our schools,” Gonzalez said. “We have a psychologist come into our school only once a week. They took the counselors out and the librarians are gone.”

Jessica Vasquez, who teaches a film class to six graders, said the schools are also physically in shambles.

“The bathrooms are in bad shape, the ceilings are coming down in the classrooms and the school looks like a prison,” she explained. “The curriculum is boring and Eurocentric to students who look like me (a Latina). They end up dropping out of school, working at a fast food place, getting pregnant or going to prison.”

Vasquez added, “When I ask the students what they want to be, they often tell me, ‘to be alive.’ This is sad - when they should be saying they want to be a doctor, teacher, engineer or other profession.”

The idea for the march came about after the activists felt that the march wasn’t effective, since neither the Governor’s staff nor Jack O’Connell, the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, would meet with him.

“We decided to engage in the fast so we could pressure the officials to meet with us,” said Cesar Cruz, a former conflict management teacher in San Pablo.  “After we fasted 10 days in Oakland, we decided to bring our fast to Sacramento.”

The hunger strike appears to already be having its impact. The group met with Jack O’Connell to discuss the fasters’ demands on Thursday, May 20.

“O’Connell endorsed two of our demands (1) to fully fund Proposition 98 and (2) to endorse a new formula for equitable funding in the schools,” said Cruz.

Cruz Reynoso, the Chief Magistrate of the California Supreme Court, also said the same day that he would endorse the same two demands.

However, a 35 minute meeting between the organizers and three of the Governor’s staff, including Deputy Cabinet Secretary Kimberly Lee, was less fruitful. “They told us little of a whole lot of nothing,” Cruz said.

The group has vowed to keep their hunger strike going until their demands are incorporated into the state education budget, according to Gabriel Hernandez, fast organizer.

The fasters describe themselves as a “grassroots civil rights movement committed to ending inequity in public education.”  On the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. the Board of education, they believe that the time has come for “equal, quality education for all children.”

The oldest faster, 66-year-old Fred Jackson of Richmond, is an Army veteran and civil rights activist who participated in the desegregation battles in Louisiana in 1962, including a sit-in at Walgreens Store.

“For too long, education has been put on the back seat when in comes to funding,” said Jackson. “Fifty years after Brown Vs. Education, our educational system is in shambles and our prisons are overflowing with those who came up short in the schools. Fifty years later, our juvenile institutions are wall to wall with youth. Fifty years later, It is a moral disgrace that these issues and concerns are still not being addressed.”

What can you do to support the fasters? Contact Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger and tell him you support the Fast 4 Education and demand that the voter-approved Proposition 98 continue to be fully funded:
Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA. 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633.

The fasters also need support from people to go by and give them encouragement, as well as get the word out on email contact lists. For more information, contact (408) 835-6633 or log on to http://www.Fast4Education.org