A large crowd filled the Steamfitters Union Hall in Concord as Tom Torlakson, (D-Assembly-Martinez) spoke with supporters of his campaign to be the next State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Having just won a 5 Kilometer Foot Race that morning and receiving the gold medal in his agre group, the gathering called a Sprint to Victory was aptly named.
With an introduction by Susan Bonilla, who is running for Tom’s termed out Assembly Seat and herself a teacher, Torlakson was cheered by a combination of three educator groups who have endorsed him: the California Teachers Association, California Federation of Teachers, and the California School Educators Association.
State Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-Senate-Concord) also delivered kind words, noting that, “Tom Torlaskon is the Teachers’ Choice.” Being a union hall, Tom’s union supporters were there with key team members from the Steamfitters, IBEW, AFSCME and the SEIU.
Torlakson is a former science teacher that is looking to make a complete circle in his career returning to the education field he started in before a diversion through politics. He spoke of the need to increase funding to the schools throughout the state and the need to focus on raising at-risk school kids from low performance schools as a means to combat crime and other social issues.
Tom supports/sponsored the Quality Education Improvement Act which he says will direct the school system on a path to improvement. He also addressed the importance of providing support to low performance elementary schools. He used giving Livermore’s Marylin Avenue Elementary as an example. That school moved up 130 points in its API scoring and reached a 10 rating out of 10 this year in the school state ranking system. Torlakson set as his goal bringing the California’s school system back to the top five of the nation rather than in the bottom five.
In discussing the issues in the campaign with his staff, Tom strongly opposes voucher systems and anything that would divert resources from the public schools. He urged that charter schools be brought into the same accountability as the mainstream schools as far as standards are concerned and is opposed to unrestricted charter systems.
The State Superintendent of Public Instruction is a bi-partisan position that will be voted on in the June 8th election, with a run off of the top two in November if no one gets a majority.
Bill Gram-Reefer is Editor & Publisher of Halfway To Concord, founded in 2004. Halfway To Concord is the leading online source for community-driven political news, events, and opinion for Contra Costa County and the San Francisco East Bay.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I would like to know if a school district gets paid for the students on furlough days that the staff has to take unpaid? If they do how can this be the students are not in school?
75% of Senator Mark Desaulnier $850,000 used to elect him came from Sacramento. Sacramento is not in the seventh district. The voices of the seventh district are not heard from the Senator on the California State Senate. And how much of the $$ received by Torlakson are from outside his district?
Tom Torlakson was a science teacher. That’s been well-documented.
Torlakson has voted against the recent education cuts. That seems like it would indicate he has stood up for schools. Repeatedly. As Edi noted in his post, Torlakson authored legislation to send $3 billion to the state’s lowest performing schools. He explained how that program is leading to real progress and improved achievement–and provided concrete examples. He’s explained how he wants to use the Superintendent of Public Instruction office to fight for more funding and true reforms that are supported by evidence and data.
For instance, there is no evidence charter schools work — the recent Stanford study is the latest to show such results. Since they use taxpayer money, Torlakson has talked about how they should be held accountable and that there should be transparency in their board operations. It’s interesting how demands for accountability and transperancy stop at the charter school door.
He wants to increase career technical education, broaden accountability requirements so they focus on more than bubble tests, improve the use of technology in our schools, and fight for every school — not just for the few students who might be able to escape through so-called choice methods that would leave many in-need children behind.
For these reasons, and many more, I’m voting for Torlakson.
~ EDITOR RESPONDS — Thank you for a cogent argument, David. Unfortunately, It should not come as a shock to anyone that schools of all kinds run the gamut from poor to great, even County run Head Start programs where children wander off unattended.
The only kids that “escape” are the ones who have parents who can afford to live in purportedly “good” school districts or sneak their kids into Acalanes using fraudulent residency papers. Some of the leading lights of Concord for instance have moved to WC Creek just to “escape” MDUSD.
And why do they even try to escape? It’s because there are good and bad public schools, too; so your justification for continued discrimination against poor kids, minorities, and freedom of conscience is hardly acceptable.
Would anyone accept the premise that the state should determine or limit one’s choices on which college or technical school a person can attend? It’s not the state’s business to tell students or parents where or how to educate their kids. So why do we tolerate it for K-12? The only answer is the unions and state bureaucracy fight for their interest instead of parents and students.
Sadly, Torlakson, as a career politician and Stockhom-Syndrome victim of teacher union propaganda all these years, like Patty Hearst, cannot see straight on this issue. Rather, he uncritically tramples on First Amendment rights of every parent forcing poor, people of color, and minorities into under-performing “schools,” while perniciously taxing anyone that chooses out of conscience some other school than a good or bad gubbermint run school.
Fund each child equally and let parents choose. Let “In-need” students and their parents be the first to exercise their right to choose the school of their choice.
Tom Torlakson is nothing if not a shill for Teacher union bosses and does not deserve support. Torlakson ought to get a real job, but he will probably end up a lobbyist like his predecessors. Maybe he could drive one of the County buses around with no riders and he’d prove just as effective and influential.
Torlakson’s education agenda, including hobbling charter schools at every step and refusing parents any real choice in schooling, or accountability, is just more of the usual state sponsored bigoted discrimination against the poor, minorities, and freedom of conscience that only serves bureaucracies, unions, and insiders, not teachers, children, and parents.
Torlakson and his ilk offer nothing that will help California and its schools become what they will need to be in future years to help Californians thrive and prosper.
I am a teacher, and I WILL NOT be voting for Tommy Torkelson. He is just another political hack looking for anothe few terms at the public trough. Where has he been the last several years? He has not stood up for education once in his tenure in the legislature. He is not on record as having railed against the cuts that Sacramento has imposed upon our schools. All he has done for schools the last several years is used them for “photo ops”. Tommy’s literature talks about everything that he will do in his new office. He could have been making difference already. The Sate Superintendent has no power to enact educational changes, and or to increase funding. That power belongs in the legislature, where Tommy has been an abysmal failure. I am so glad that the CC Times endorsed another, more qualified candidate. It’s time for Tommy to be a teaacher again (if he ever was – how do you teach science with a degree in history?)