Building a Movement for Kids
i
went to high school at aragon high
school in san mateo county
a number of years ago and i was very
active in trying to give
students a voice back then as part of
our city’s
youth advisory council pushing for a
student member on our school board and
through those and other activities
folks would always and patronizingly say
oh this is so wonderful you’re preparing
yourself to be a leader for tomorrow
and i was thinking aren’t i trying to
lead today
you are all today’s leaders and we need
you to step up
because the state of california children
and youth
is not good it’s not good when compared
to your peers
around the country and even in many
other countries
around the world i want to just give you
a few
rather depressing stats before i talk
about
how we together can change this and
really make
california the best place to live for
young people and to prepare for our
future
so here’s just a few stats from children
now’s report card
where we basically grade the state on
key indicators of child well-being so
first chronic sadness
and suicide ideation among high school
students
it was reported in terms of chronic
sadness
30 percent of straight high schoolers 58
percent of gay lesbian
and 68 percent of bisexual high school
students reported feeling chronic
sadness
and in terms of suicide ideation 13 of
straight students 39 of gay lesbian
and 47 of bisexual students according to
this study
this was before the pandemic
these are from 2019 statistics
in terms of academic achievement believe
it or not california ranks near
the bottom of the 50 states huge gaps
among races although none of our kids
are achieving as as well compared to
peers
in other states but we have over
two-thirds of our
black and brown kids not meeting grade
levels in terms
of math and science in the third eighth
grade
in high school measurements there’s gaps
in terms of income
also gaps in terms of race even putting
aside
income which shows something about the
systemic racism in our education system
another stat we
in those in government make decisions
about how much we
pay public servants people working for
our government
the average public employee in
california
makes over eighty one thousand dollars a
year
the average preschool educator makes
thirty four thousand and the average
child care provider
twenty six thousand these are decisions
we collectively make
in some people who work with kids in
california
are paid less people that don’t and many
of our many of these
public employee jobs don’t even require
a college degree
where jobs like being a teacher
which is slightly below even the average
for a public employee
requires a bachelor’s degree plus
additional education
and one other stat is that we rank
near the bottom in education funding we
straight up 39th of the 50 states but
when you factor in for cost of living
we rank even further compare that when i
was going through the public school
system way back when
when we ranked fourth per capita in
spending for education
so we have a lot of work to do and i can
give you so many more
statistics but let’s just delve into a
sec for a minute
you know why aren’t kids more of a
priority why
don’t we turn these statistics around
not just here in our state
but throughout the country i hear a lot
of excuses for why kids aren’t the
priority
one kids don’t vote well first of all
we try just recently california to
ensure that 17 years olds can vote and
we’re continuing to
work towards that but when you think
about that
that quote excuse think of lots of other
interests that do so
well in our in our public policy
decisions whether in sacramento
or washington dc there aren’t that many
people
in the major financial services or
different business
enterprises that that vote and yet they
have a lot of lot of power
so then people say yeah but those have
money well there’s a lot of money behind
kids i think you’re
familiar with the fact that there’s lots
of philanthropic efforts and
people donating for different kids
causes and in fact if you aggregate that
there’s as much spent behind doing right
by kids
as many of these other interests so
another
argument you hear is well voters don’t
care it’s not true
now there are there’s a percent of the
population
in california nationally that has not
been very supportive of
kids issues and especially needed
equitable education and other reforms
but
for the most part the vast majority of
californians do
strongly support um putting kids at the
top and all kids i mean there’s
lots of polling that shows for example
californians would raise their taxes
to ensure that undocumented kids in
california got the support they need
but i would argue oftentimes the
majority of the public is ahead of the
political
elite so what’s going on here why aren’t
kids
more of the priority in terms of our of
public policy making
well i would argue that it’s because the
advocacy that
when in terms of advocacy efforts to put
kids at the top
agenda is far too disconnected think for
example of
advocacy for seniors one group aarp
think of advocacy efforts for
labor for business for uh gun rights
very
consolidated efforts uh to push their
effort um in in terms of reform even
when you look at uh
this desperately needed uh reforms for
police forces last summer even during
these
so powerful protests one entity the
police unions was able to block
major reforms in sacramento last summer
so we see successful interests being
very connected
very coordinated when it comes to the
kids world we have
thousands and thousands and thousands
amazing organizations
including youth-led groups but when it
comes to advocacy
that many groups if they’re all
disconnected makes it very hard to come
together and push for the needed
uh changes it’s particularly a problem
in california
where i in addition to running children
now teach california politics
at uc berkeley what i highlight to my
students there
is that california legislative districts
are huge
a million people in a state senate
district half a million an assembly
district
in many states there is only three or
four thousand people in the legislative
district
so the the general needs the needs of
what folks
are talking about every day get
communicated to their legislators
because the districts are so small
in california very few people actually
know their legislator
so what happens is interest groups big
interest groups dominate
what happens because you don’t know your
legislature so you base
your your vote or your opinion of your
legislator
on what an interest group says so what’s
really needed is essentially how do we
create an
interest group a powerful collective
voice for kids
by respecting these thousands and
thousands of diverse voices
at diverse organizations fighting for
kids in california
that’s where the children’s movement of
california comes in
it’s a unique effort that many around
the country are looking at modeling
where we’re saying let’s bring together
every group that wants to see kids
prioritized in public policy making
and bring them together as a network so
folks can speak at the same time at the
same strategic
time with one voice demanding the kids
be prioritized the children’s movement
of california now has over 4 100 diverse
organizations throughout the state and
growing
there’s actually 93 000 nonprofits
focused on kids in california imagine if
all of them were part of this network
so what does this network mean well one
it’s a way to connect folks and share
research and and the condition of kids
in california
but also very powerfully it allows for
collective action
hundreds and hundreds of groups to speak
at the same time so i just want to give
you a few
quick examples of how we’re changing
things in california and putting kids at
the top
last summer in terms of the state budget
there were proposals to cut services and
programs
throughout the government including
major cuts to k-12 education
child care and other key health programs
for children
those proposals we were able to block
by getting over a thousand groups to
send a joint letter to the governor and
legislature saying enough is enough
now is the time to prioritize children
and other
interests in the state were cut much
more severely
and than kids and kids programs were
finally protected
because of this huge combination of
folks coming together and speaking with
one voice
that’s very different than many past
years
in sacramento where was kids programs
that were cut
more than any others a few other uh
examples we’ve been with the movement
came together
putting the pressure on getting schools
reopened as quickly and safely as
possible
this year due to the pandemic school
discipline
an issue where we saw far too many kids
of color particularly
black kids being basically expelled from
school because of quote
misbehavior through the movement bring
hundreds of groups together really
pushing to get that changed
um so that that bad behavior in and of
itself wasn’t something that was going
to get a child
expelled from school and we’ve also used
it for
in the area of child welfare in our
foster youth
that the movement came together to help
push a 24 7 crisis hotline
where any foster youth parent guardian
can call it any time
for help and support before this hotline
came into existence
you know most of these youth had two
choices either a suicide hotline
or calling the cops now there’s a
ongoing support for these
young people and really something that
all students should have access to
these were the kinds of reforms that the
children’s movement can help push
through
more funding for kids needed services
needed supports and the final example
the children’s movement has been
pushing to ensure more transparency in
education funding
california actually has a unique law
that really provides more equitable
funding where english learners
foster youth students in poverty are
supposed to get
more dollars for their education
than the baseline of students but that
law has not been
implemented effectively and the
children’s movement has been pushing to
ensure that those dollars
really get to each kid intended so
things are changing and it really is an
exciting opportunity to bring
organizations together diverse groups
throughout the state each
pushing their own needs in their own
agenda but coming together
on the biggest issues facing youth and
when we have that kind of collective
action
it can make a huge difference basically
create a lot of
fear in a good way and really change
things in sacramento
uh to finally get our kids um at the at
the top
of the agenda so let me close with why
i’m
optimistic that we can really change the
dynamics for
young people in this state and truly put
kids at the top of the list i say that
because i actually think that’s where
most people
are when i was first elected to the
state legislature
i’m the first week in office i visited a
homeless shelter in my district and i
went around talking to the folks there
and i went up to one woman and
happened to say i’m going to be at a
meeting with the governor tomorrow
what do you want him to do for you what
should i ask the governor to do
this woman looked me straight in the eye
and said
you don’t need to talk about me please
tell the governor to make sure my kid
gets a
great education and gets the health care
that she needs
i think that sentiment expressed by that
woman expresses where
most of us are meaning we care so much
about the future generations we know
it’s our collective
future and when push comes to shove we
need to put our young people first
if there’s any silver lining out of this
horrendous year
we’ve all experienced to the pandemic is
i see
folks finally realizing that kids have
been disproportionately impacted
and why we need to put kids at the top
of the agenda so i think that’s where
much of the public is i think we need to
be very sophisticated and strategic
in how we come together but i’m hopeful
that those statistics i shared earlier
about how we even too many ways have
been failing our kids
can turn around and that we can make
california the model
of how a state treats its young people
and ensures a positive future thank you