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DSA Honorary Chair Dolores Huerta joins the Fast for Education on its 25th Day in Sacramento

DSA Chair Dolores Huerta and Assemblyman Gil Zedillo at Fast4Education rally.

Angel Picon and Dolores Delgado Campbell, Latino commission co-chairs, joined some 200 people to mark the event. Dolores Huerta brought a number of key legislators, Gil Zedillo, Jackie Goldberg, Lonni Hancock to state their support for the demands of those fasting- adequate funding for California public schools in this budget crisis.

Those fasting has been reduced from 6 to 3 now in their 25th. Day. But Huerta and others each pledged to join the fasts and to extend the fasting to others in cities and towns across the state.
Senate Cedillo and Assemblywoman Goldberg each emphasized the need to pass taxes on the rich. California’s economy is the 5th. Largest economy in the world, said Cedillo. We have half of the nation’s millionaires. But we refuse to adequately fund our schools because Governor Schwarzenneger and the Republicans are protecting the rich.

California ranks 49th. Out of the 50 states in the percentage of its Latino and Black students who have a B.A. degree, and the current budget proposals would cut back university access even more.

After 25 days, the fasters are weak and in pain. (Cesar Chavez’ first fast lasted only 35 days). These fasters and their supporters represent primarily Latino and Native American students, with frequent statements of support from members of the African American community. They are accepting pain and sacrifice in their efforts.

The fasters were visited by Dolores Huerta, Former Vice President of the United Farm Workers, Director of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. She is lobbying on behalf of the fasters. Dolores Huerta was introduced on the Assembly Floor and she, along with Assemblymember Parra spoke about the fasters.

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

by Dan Bacher , Sacramento, California.

Six people 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 Costa County Unified School District (WCCUSD).
• to create equity in educational funding.

Wendy Gonzalez, a first year elementary school teacher, 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 fast came about after the activists felt that the march wasn’t eff ective, since neither the Governor’s staff nor Jack O’Connell, the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, would meet with them.

“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 vs. 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 it comes to funding,” said Jackson. “Fifty years after Brown vs. the Board of 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

Day 18
Fast 4 Education raises the stakes in Sacramento; rally to mark the 18th. Day of the Fast. Latino commission activist Wendy Gonzalez, and six others, marked the 18th. Day of the Fast for Education with a youth speak out for education on the South Steps of the California Capitol today.

Long time activist Jose Montoya read one of his poems, Los they are us.

Zac de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine send a solidarity statement thanking the parents, teaches and students for defending school funding. He argued that the fast broke through the media screen seeking to hide the real costs of the budget cuts.

The fast demands that Governor Schwarzenegger fully fund the schools and pass legislation to establish equitable funding of schools.

The California budget crisis remains deadlocked as they approach a June 15 deadline to pass a budget.

Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, a liberal and Chair of the Assembly Education committee, told the press that the budget stalemate could be resolved without draconian cuts to schools and to health care if Schwarzenegger and the Republicans would add a surcharge to those making over $200,000 per year. This group has received a tax cut of over $8,000 from their federal taxes.

The California Senate and the Assembly committees have recently restored important funds to education, but it remains to be seen if this budge can achieve the necessary 2/3 vote and can it survive a Governor’s line item veto.

It comes down to tax the rich or cut vital services to the poor.