Jan 23, 2014
Our schools are brimming with children who have families on the brink of homelessness. Surprised to hear that? How about this: In Santa Clara County more than 3,000 students attending local schools were homeless by the standards of the U.S. Office of Education. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Yes “we.” A strong workforce is…
Jan 22, 2014
Education of poor children without real stability for poor families will not create the community change needed to stamp out poverty. Perhaps the best evidence of this is that Head Start, a federal pre-school program created decades ago to help lift poor kids out of poverty, isn’t doing the job. Born of the federal government’s War on Poverty, Head Start…
Jan 21, 2014
“The news of my death is greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain California High Speed Rail would already exist if we had listened to Governor Jerry Brown in his first term in the 1970s. Ever the visionary, Brown extolled Californians to look to the future. At the time he was ridiculed for his efforts. Now in his third term and in a…
Jan 17, 2014
Little more than a year ago the County Board of Education approved 20 Rocketship charters all at once, but Wednesday night the same Board showed it is no longer rubber stamp for charters. With staff opposed to two charters in Morgan Hill – including another Rocketship charter — and Board members raising serious questions, Rocketship withdrew its appeal of a…
Jan 14, 2014
“Always focus on the front windshield and not the rear view mirror.” ― Colin Powell Today, San Jose neighborhoods are concerned about crime, public safety, gangs, and graffiti. People don’t care about the statistics of how many homicides, violent assaults, burglaries, or car break-ins occurred in some meaningless snapshot of time. People are fearful of what’s going on right here…
Jan 13, 2014
The federal Affordable Care Act is not a perfect law, but it’s a giant step in the right direction. It has already helped Californians by allowing them to keep their kids on their health insurance until age 26, eliminating “lifetime” caps in coverage, banning health insurers from discriminating against kids with pre-existing conditions — the list of benefits in place…
Jan 9, 2014
In the Tuesday Mercury News, Sam Liccardo suggested that the next mayor of San Jose should promote Rocektship’s model of education by extending the school day and creating “learning” labs for after-school programs. On Wednesday, Rocektship lost its chance to defend this model when they withdrew their appeal of Morgan Hill’s denial of their charter petition. After the November 20,…
Jan 8, 2014
I’m concerned! I read an advert in the paper that urged seniors to get ready for the end of their working years and focus on their stock portfolios so they could move on, well provided for in their waning years. Horrific! One, we know many seniors can’t afford to retire, much less dream of piling up a robust portfolio. Two,…
Jan 8, 2014
Silicon Valley is heading into 2014 armed with something many thought we would never have, and perhaps didn’t deserve — a second chance. The rebooting of the overall economic picture after years of slumping has ignited an optimism of the potential of our region that we have not seen in a decade. The message from iconic tech giants like Facebook,…