CH AMBER VIEW
Advocating For Business
in Our Capital Region
sionately believe in it, don’t start a charter. It’s a lot of work,
and especially now. It’s very political and so you really have to
believe in what you’re doing and be very passionate about it.
Virtual learning is becoming a powerful tool in education.
What are the benefits and challenges of online classes?
While you can build a certain level of relationships online, you
really need face-to-face human interaction in order to have that
relationship building. At the same time, if yo u choose to only
do things in the traditional way … with the teacher at the front
of the room and the students in the desks — even though that’s
face to face, I don’t know that it’s building relationships either.
This upcoming generation of students are used to being on-
line. They’re used to being constantly connected. We educators
cannot ignore that. So how do you balance that developing of
human connection while utilizing some of these tools students
are used to operating within? That’s one of the big challenges
in educating the current generation of students.
How do you attract quality teachers in California, and
how do you keep them here?
It’s not just about putting more money into public education
— it’s what do we do with that money. Let’s say teachers work
180 student attendance days. Most teachers’ contracts are 185
days, five more than students are actually attending. That’s
not a regular work year; it’s actually only maybe a quarter of
a work year. If you look at a teachers’ daily rate, it’s actually
not too bad. But ... it’s like they are seasonal workers. That’s
why salaries are so low. I think California needs to extend
teacher work years. Because there’s such an achievement gap,
students need to come to school during the summers. We need
to have more intercession workshops. There is definitely work
for teachers to do, but we’re still based on the whole agri-
cultural system where you don’t start until after the harvest.
So what we need to do is take a look at the larger system,
and how we fund it and how the people within that system
are working. n
Rich Ehisen is the managing editor of State Net Capitol Journal.
His work has appeared in Sunset, San Francisco Magazine,
California Journal, Sacramento Magazine and the Lexis Legal
Network. On Twitter @WordsmithRich.
Regional growth, prosperity and inclusion are essential
to meeting the needs of our business community. The
Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce utilizes
advocacy at the local, state and federal level as a means to
amplify the voice of business in our region and maximize
the impact.
Earlier this month our Flood Protection Policy Team helped
secure a big win when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
announced $1.8 billion in funding for flood protection
projects in the Capital Region. This funding has been a
top priority for our federal advocacy teams at Capitol-to-
Capitol over the past several years, and in 2018 they were
able to make that final impact.
The funding included authorized work for the American
River Common Features project, which addresses
deficiencies along the Sacramento River east levee south
of the American River and the north area streams levees,
as well as the potential for erosion along the American and
Sacramento Rivers. In addition, funding will raise the
Folsom Dam by 3.5 feet, in order to increase the ability to
manage storms larger than a 200-year event and improve
the robustness and reliability of managing less than
200-year storm events.
These projects will have a significant impact on reducing
flood risk in our region, and the amount of funding we’ve
received is unlike anything we’ve seen. Flood Protection
Policy Team Captain Eric Nagy summed it up best when
he described the new funding as “once-in-a-generation.”
Securing such a large amount of funding takes a
tremendous amount of coordination and collaboration
with our regional partners, congressional representatives,
and federal agencies, but is well worth it when we can
deliver a win as big as this for the Capital Region.
Advocacy wins such as this demonstrate how collectively
the business community can impact decisions at local,
state and federal levels to affect change and growth for
our entire community.
Chris Smith
Are charter schools an asset or
detriment to strong public education?
DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS
METRO CHAMBER
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August 2018 | comstocksmag.com
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