9:25am | In response to Governor Jerry Brown’s “State of the State” address, which he delivered Wednesday, Senator Alan Lowenthal has released the following remarks, which we print below in their entirety:
I was encouraged in listening to the Governor’s State of the State speech, both as a public servant and as a citizen. The Governor rightly focused on three major areas that impact and connect a vast majority of Californians—jobs, education, and the environment.
The bottom line is, we have worked hard, we are doing better, but we have more to do. The news that 2011 brought 230,000 new jobs is good news, but still of little comfort to the nearly 2 million Californians that remain unemployed. We must work harder in 2012. That we in the Legislature have again reduced the structural deficit in the state is also good news, but still does little for the more than 100,000 Californians that lost their homes last year. We have to work harder.
While I certainly applaud the Governor’s call for greater local discretion and control in education in these tough fiscal times, we cannot lose sight of the desperate need to maintain and provide a certain level of education to our students. Providing, as the Governor suggested, a base level of K-12 funding is a critical starting point–one we will continue to work with him on–but we must work toward the long-term goal of stabilizing education funding and reversing the repetitive cycle of cuts followed by more cuts. This does not mean, however, that we cannot improve the education system. Education reform is something that I have fought for in the past and will continue to fight for.
Providing less, but focused assessments that provide useful academic and evaluative information in as real time as possible to parents, teachers and the public is an excellent starting point for discussion. Formative assessment data are great tools for informing teachers and helping students move through the K-12 system and on to college.
As I have done in the past, I also support the Governor’s suggestion of having qualitative evaluations of teachers that utilize both data and site visits.
State and local government, working together with students, parents, and teachers, can come together to work on reforming, improving and strengthening our state’s education system. We must. The workplace is becoming more and more technically advanced, asking for ever more sophisticated and educated workers. As we have in the past, we can provide that workforce and the individual benefits that it provides us all.
California leads the nation in technology and venture capital investment mainly because of our highly educated work force. Our students are the future of California. Our investment in them is an investment in ourselves.
Our state also leads the nation in the efforts to protect the environment, while at the same time capitalizing on the educated and highly skilled workforce in reaping the benefits of a green economy. We lead the nation the creation of jobs in the renewable energy sector and the design and construction of green buildings and green technologies.
This is just one way that we can find the nexus between the environment and jobs. I have been working on these issues for years and I applaud the Governor for taking the position that job creation and better environmental stewardship are not mutually exclusive. By focusing on the important issues of jobs, education and the environment, and their intertwined relationship in California, we can not only assure a more viable today, but a more prosperous tomorrow.