CCAE State Conference: Bringing It Home

Ever go to a conference?  A fair?  A festival?

Ever wander from booth to booth, filling your bag with stuff then come home and dump it all out on the bed and ask yourself, "Now why did I bring all this crap home?  I will never ever use it... "

That is NOT what happened at the CCAE State Conference in Sacramento last weekend.

No... I'm pretty sure everyone who left that conference came home with these three magic beans:

Information  -

about the big picture
    how we got here
    where we can go
    how to get where we want to go

Inspiration  - 

through seeing and hearing
    courage, smarts, sharing, caring and long game strategy

and very importantly,

Other people to join hands with

     in the work to rebuild Adult Education.

Here's a recap:

The speakers were terrific.  CCAE videotaped all of them and we look forward to seeing them as they're uploaded onto CCAE's website.

(Note:  This recap is from my notes. 

If you have a sense I misunderstood something, leave a comment on the blog
and I will address.)

Hit the "read more" link to get the recap...

Show Up and Speak Up

Showing up and speaking up make a difference.

An Occupy Education rally took place took place at the San Mateo Adult School on Thursday, March 1st and the Occupy Education March to Sacramento was Monday, March 5.

You can see photos from Occupy Education events at the San Mateo Adult School and in San Francisco here. Thanks to Teacher David for showing up and speaking up, taking photos, and sharing them with us. And thanks to Student Mario for the photo taken at the March to Sacramento event. Mario showed up and spoke up, as well.

At both these events, people pushed for the Millionaire's Tax, a measure that would have taxed the top 1% of California earners in order to benefit education.

On March 14th, Governor Brown reached a compromise with the backers of the Millionare's Tax.

The compromise is a better deal for schools than Gov. Brown's original proposal.

You can read more about the more compromise here.

Important: all these proposals - Brown's proposal, the Millionaire's Tax, the Governor's Compromise - are just that: proposals.

None of them are even on the ballot yet.

We must collect signatures to put the Governor's Compromise on the ballot in November of 2012.

And then it must pass.

If it doesn't, we are in big trouble.

The good news is that if we continue to show up and speak up, we can make sure it passes.

We can save our educational system from disaster. And we can rebuild it, too. Step by step.

You can take a step right now by sharing this information with others. Talk to friends, family and neighbors about the situation or share this blog with them.

One of the many important things adult education provides is classes in citizenship. Immigrants learn about US history, democratic principles, both the rights and responsibilities of citizenry.

Speaking up and showing up is not just our right. It is our responsibility.

This is democracy in action.

Be a part of it.