WALNUT CREEK – The John Garamendi for Congress campaign today released its latest podcast entitled “Education is Opportunity.” The podcast highlights how President Barack Obama’s federal stimulus package brings improvements to 10th Congressional District schools and keeps tens-of-thousands of teachers in the classroom statewide.

A link to the podcast is available here: http://www.garamendi.org/sites/default/files/Education-Podcast%20MP3.mp3.

“More than 43,000 qualified students are not in the university system this fall because of the cutbacks in state funding,” Lieutenant Governor Garamendi said in the podcast. “Fortunately, the federal government has provided some additional money through the stimulus package for our schools.”

The campaign previously released “Job Creation,” a podcast highlighting paths to employment and recovery.

Transcript of “Education is Opportunity”:

Hello, this is Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi. You probably know me as your Lieutenant Governor. I want you to know me as your Congressman.

I’m the Democratic nominee for the 10th Congressional District election, and I want you to know what my view is on important issues.

The most important thing that any society can do is to educate its children. Fail to educate your children, and you have essentially taught them how to be criminals. So we must move our education system forward. None of us are surprised to learn that our education system in California is failing.

We’ve got 25 percent drop out in high schools. We’ve got kids who are in college who really don’t know how to read and write. So we’ve got an enormous challenge out ahead of us.

Two things have to be done simultaneously. First of all, the system has to be made effective and efficient, willing and able to change. And secondly, we’re going to have to put some money into this system. We are spending at the rate of the 47th in all of the states, and our outcome is about 47th of all of the states.

So we need to spend the money wisely, efficiently, and effectively. For example, at our university systems, in the last year, we have taken $800 million out of both the state university system – and that’s here in this district with Cal State East Bay – and the University of California – again, on the edge of the district, the University of California at Berkeley.

More than 43,000 qualified students are not in the university system this fall because of the cutbacks in state funding. Fortunately, the federal government has provided some additional money through the stimulus package for our schools.

Let me give you a couple of examples. The Livermore Unified School District has received $3.4 million to upgrade its buildings; Acalanes $1.7 million; Antioch $5 million; Mount Diablo $9 million. This money is going into repairing the buildings, providing some equipment and support.

At the state level, tens of thousands of teachers are continuing to be employed because of the money coming in from the federal government in the American recovery program, the stimulus package. It’s extremely important this be available, and we may have to continue it depending on how the economy rebounds.

The challenge for us in this state is to make sure that our children get the education that they need. One of the critical opportunities, important and necessary opportunities, is to rebuild in our school systems vocational education which is now called career technical education.

This gives students who may not be headed to college and may think they never will head to college an opportunity to learn a trade, a skill, and most important of all, to continue to be involved and curious about knowledge and acquiring that knowledge.

So we have a challenge out ahead. The federal government will play a major role in this in the days ahead as the No Child Left Behind program is rewritten. I will be there. When I’m elected to Congress with your vote and support, I will be there to make sure that program is written in such a way as to provide our schools with the money that they need, a testing program that really makes sense – it doesn’t right now, but we need to change that. And make sure the local school districts have not only the resources but also the capability to adapt and change to a modern economy.

So let’s not forget that our job as parents is to make sure that our kids have the very best education everywhere so that they can compete in the new global marketplace.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 30, 2009
Contact: Josh Franco, 916-863-6881, jfranco@garamendi.org