Educate Our State

What you can do? 

Here's the not-quite-so-good news, we have a long road ahead of us and a lot of work to be done. What can you do?

Share your passion, host an Educate Me! house party (or town hall or brown bag lunch)

The best thing we can do is realize we are not alone! Share your passion for demanding high-quality public education with others. We'll help, we promise. Contact Team Leader Annie about hosting an event. We'll share why we started Educate Our State, why it matters and what we are doing to create change. Invite some friends, have them invite more friends...the next thing you know we'll have 25 folks in a room and the ideas will be flowing (maybe some coffee, too). Learn more here. 

Let your voice be heard (in three minutes or less)

It is easy to send a letter to your state legislators and let them know what is on your mind. Click here and visit our Legislative Action Center. We have created a letter that you can customize or feel free to write one on your own. Enter your address and then hit "send." Congrats! Doesn't it feel good to speak up for California's children?

Consider writing a Letter to the Editor

Your opinion counts and people will listen! 

We've put together a quick one pager to help guide you in writing a successful Letter to the Editor, here. Why a letter? Well people read them. Yep, every single day folks just like you flip to the back of the main news section and read what other people have to say (or they look on-line, but that's beside the point).

And, guess what? People listen. Because the letters are written by people just like you; see a sample letter here. People write with a personal experience to share or the side of a story that isn't being told. We encourage you to respond to a newspaper article about public education, the lack of funding or the need for change.

Trust us; once you've been published you'll be addicted. Just make sure to email us and let us know about your successes.

Here are some other ideas 

Over a cup of coffee

Join us on facebook and and twitter and sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on issues and actions being taken by us, and others, on behalf of California Public Education. This includes a few events we'll be throwing, where you can meet like-minded people in your own community.

Instead of watching an hour of bad reality TV (ok, guilty pleasure)

Read up on the issues facing California's public schools on our favorite website, EdSource.  One could get lost for hours reading about Title 1, revenue limits, categoricals and the effect of Prop. 13. Have a bit more time? Download our recommended primer on California Public Education.

Can't sleep at night and feel the need to speak out?

We recommend the legislation pages on the California PTA website. They have up-to-the-minute information on legislation under consideration in Sacramento related to Public Education. You can also use the links on the right hand side of their page to find your legislator and send them an email about what it is that is keeping you up (this assumes it relates to Public Education; if it doesn't then please email at your own risk.)

What we're doing in our "spare time"

In addition to all the other actions being taken, two "adequacy" lawsuits have been filed against the State of California demanding an overhaul to the K-12 Public Education system, including requiring adequate funding for all.  Educate Our State supports these long-term approaches and hopes that our legislators will see the writing on the wall and take action before the legal system requires it.

Two of our founding members have children as plaintiffs in the Adequacy Funding Lawsuit filed by the Campaign for Quality Education (Campaign for Quality Education, et. al., v. California). Learn more at www.FairSchoolsNow.org.

To learn about the other lawsuit filed visit www.FixSchoolFinance.org. 

Watch our video postcard supporting the lawsuit below (youtube link)

Educate Our State is a nonprofit organization recognized as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code, tax id# 27-1686467.