IT'S TIME FOR A SHAMELESS PLUG for an organization near and dear to my heart: The Ventura Education Partnership. Our biggest fundraiser of the year is coming up on Saturday night: the Festival of Talent, which showcases our most talented youth.
In the past year, VEP has given more than $100,000 to Ventura Unified School District classrooms through a teacher granting program. Our Healthy Schools Collaborative has distributed nearly $30,000 to health and wellness programs and our Arts Collaborative is working with the City of Ventura on an Arts Master Plan for the district.
We've done great work and have forged wonderful partnerships within the business community and the city. Our volunteers and donors are among the brightest, most motivated people I have ever known. We are united by a common bond: to do what is best for our community's children. It is an honor to be among this group of citizens.
AND YET, IN OUR HEARTS, we realize that despite our valiant efforts, we will never be able to do by ourselves what we really want: raise California's per-pupil spending out of the dark basement in which it has dwelled for many years. We're 46th in the nation right now and trailing the national average by nearly $2,000 per student. This is all despite the fact that California has a relatively high capacity to fund its schools, as measured by per capita personal income.
Just imagine, in 1969-70 we were actually $400 above the national average in per-pupil spending. How very far we have fallen.
Our governor will be asking us to make even more cuts in the coming months. Could we fall even lower than 46th? At a recent VEP meeting, VUSD Superintendent Trudy Arriaga detailed what those cuts would mean for Ventura's kids: just under $1 million this year and likely $4 million the next.
"It will be devastating to our classrooms yet again," she said. "Do the children of California deserve to be 46th in the nation?"
And so we in the Ventura Education Partnership and in school foundations and PTAs across the state plug away at fundraisers to help fill in a few gaps. We sell cookie dough and wrapping paper. We stage talent shows and jog-a-thons and car washes. We work hard and are rewarded for our efforts by bright, smiling little faces. It's worth every bit of our time.
Yet we know it is just a band-aid...
Come watch a great show Saturday. The Festival of Talent starts at 7 p.m. in the Ventura High School Auditorium. Tickets are $10 and available for pre-sale at all Ventura school sites. They will be $15 at the door. Come early and sample hors d'oeuvres and bid on silent auction prizes. Click here for more information about the Ventura Education Partnership.
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Let's not underestimate the "band-aid" effects of our school foundations, PTAs, PTOs, and, our favorite.... VEP (Ventura Education Partnership). Band-Aids may seem trivial, but they have been proven to prevent infection and scarring!
Never be hesitant, Marie, to give a plug to a great organization doing good work. I am sometimes chided for using my chair at Council to promote the charitable organizations and community programs that I respect and support, but I never let it give me an instant of pause.
I too suport the VEP and encourage everyone to take the time to attend and support the annual Festival of Talent show. The kids who perform have wonderful talent, and even when there are a few ragged edges, the opportunity it provides them to perform in public is immensely valuable in helping them develop the seasoning and stage presence that are necessary for ultimate success in the performing arts.
Our Kiwanis Club has been a significant sponsor (Angie and I are both members)for years -- I think since the very first show, and I have volunteered every year to staff the event, as have dozens of other members of our Kiwanis group. We always find it a very rewarding experience, and we are pleased to be able to be the lead financial sponsors and also provide the people and labor that makes it a success for the schools.
So if you have never attended the show, please do. You'll love seeing what these talented kids can do.
See you there!
Neal Andrews
Well said Marie! The vision of the future involves a huge collaboration between the business community and education. We are symbiotic and can benefit, do benefit greatly from each other.
And what did I say about having the brightest and most motivated volunteers in the city? Three of them just posted here, proving my point!
I'm not trivializing so much, Angie, as I am expressing pure frustration that we can't do more at the state level. And I am very fearful that we are about to do worse.
You are right, Chip, in this economic climate, the partnerships we forge with the business community are valuable indeed. VEP has been so very appreciative. And we are very grateful for support from the Kiwanis and the City Council as well, Neal.
Thank you for posting, my friends.
Right on Marie! VEP is a group of the most esteemed workhorses I have ever known. Their diligence and dedication to the benefits of our students is unsurpassed. The Festival of Talent has been a tremendous success in the past, thanks to our wonderful volunteers and concerned community. It warms the cockles of my heart to see the outpouring of support on this magical night. The entertainment is fantastic too!!
I totally support you, VEP and our schools. Parents have to step up NOW and do everything they can- $1 at a time, to help our grossly underfunded public schools. The level of funding our rich state gives to our public schools - CA is 46th out of 50 states- is a dirty little secret- shameful. I help my son's grammar school whenever they ask for donated supplies, books, food for a class party, donated cell phones to recycle, etc., whatever. CA has a lot of challenges and must meet them, not blow them off for later due to political expediency. You Go Girl!
I know you weren't trivializing, Marie. I was just trying to find something good out of a bad situation, and that's exactly what our public school funding is... a BAD SITUATION! I share your frustration. I, too, worry, and wish more could be done at the State level.
We're looking forward to VEP's Festival of Talent. I really appreciate all the volunteers who work so hard to bring this event to our community. It really is a great event. See you there!
You know, Angie, I was all set to do a sweet little puff piece on VEP and then I started reading a digest of all the newspaper editorials across the state calling on the Republicans in our state legislature to vote to end that ridiculous tax loophole for multi-millionaire yacht owners. They won't budge on that one but they have no trouble sticking it to our kids.
I decided to write what I really think.
Independent Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill has proposed an across-the-board series of cuts and (yes) tax increases which will spread the pain more evenly. Her proposal would halve what our governor is asking the schools to do -- make $4.8 billion in cuts and suspend the guarantees of Prop. 98.
If you're angry with the governor's current proposal, please contact him, your state senator and assembly member.