This article originally appeared in UCLA IDEA's "Themes in the News"

The following blog post by Josephine Ramirez originally appeared on the James Irvine Foundation's blog and is reprinted here by permission.

This blog was originally published by Createquity and is excerpted with permission.  Read the entire post at Createquity.

The following post originally appeared at Barry's Blog, a service of the Western States Arts Federation:

As a parent and an advocate for public education, I am urging you to vote Yes on 30 and Yes on 38 in this very important upcoming election.

Both propositions will direct billions of dollars to schools and make spending of those funds more accountable. They use different mechanisms for similar goals.

A majority of Californians support increased investment in public education, yet both statewide initiatives that would bring more money to public schools lag in the polls. How did California get in this mess? Earlier this year, at least three different political, ideological and educational “interests” were mobilizing for the ballot.

Around this time of year, when the airwaves are filled with ads for ballot measures, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and a little cynical. And yet there are local elections underway, like those for school board that will have an important impact on our kids, schools and community.

This November, Los Angeles County voters will be asked to support Measure J, a much-needed investment in our transportation system that would start up seven transit projects and eight highway improvement projects within five years and complete them within fifteen, providing traffic relief along with 250,000 good jobs. Measure J is a remarkable opportunity to put the county back to work modernizing our transportation system. It does this not by raising taxes but by extending by another 30 years the half-cent transportation sales tax voters approved in 2008.

This blog post originally appeared on KCET's Artbound as part an ongoing partnership with Arts for LA. It is reposted with permission.

This blog post originally appeared on KCET's Artbound as part an ongoing partnership with Arts for LA. It is reposted with permission.

by Charlie Jensen