Vote YES on Measure EE Tomorrow, June 4 2019
Measure EE to be voted on Tuesday, June 4, is a property tax needed to generate up to $500 million in additional funding for public schools. These funds are desperately needed for increased instructional needs. Teachers and all staff are not paid adequately, class sizes are far too large, additional teachers are needed to give greater instruction to students, essential medical, nursing, remedial, psychological, and other essential social services presently at bare bones levels must be dramatically expanded. And as UTLA has explained, in the negotiation with the LAUSD many of the student services that were agreed to in the contract are only guaranteed for 1 year and additional funds are required.
The Strategy Center has worked with high school students in more than 7 separate high schools (Cleveland, Westchester, Manuel Arts, Crenshaw, Ouchi O’Donovan, Roosevelt, and Augustus Hawkins for more than a decade through our Taking Action Clubs, working to demilitarize the schools and build long-term student leaders for social justice. Today, in a school district of 734,000 the overall student population is more than 82% Latino and Black, Moreover, more than 289,000 students attend a school that’s more than 90 percent black and Latino and more than 500,000 students qualify for free and reduced price meals reflecting a very low-income Latino and Black student body that urgently needs funds.
For all these reasons the Strategy Center supports Measure EE and asks our members and friends to vote tomorrow
Yes on EE
Concerns to discuss after the successful vote
- We need to stop further tax measures on residential property for schools or any other objectives as many working class Black and Latino families cannot pay existing property taxes on fixed or even declining incomes.
- We hope we can truly examine the psychological and financial impact of the permanent police presence in the LAUSD Schools. In 2017, the budget of the Los Angeles School Police Department was $67 million. Many of those funds could be better used for instructional purposes. The entire police presence in the schools is destructive to the psychological, cultural, and pedagogical experience of an overwhelmingly Black and Latino student body.
- The charter school question, problem, obstacle to full funding needs to be re-examined.
While all of those concerns must be addressed at a future time
None of them should prevent an enthusiastic vote on this specific measure tomorrow