Jim Araby, a state wide field director for the teachers union, held a conference for students and faculty this past week, after going campus to campus for the purpose of education, hitting on some major issues California is facing at this time.

He brought up how California has cut 40 billion dollars in the budget since 2007.

He also mentioned how just in one year from 2009 to the end of 2010 California will lose 21 billion more due to cuts, yet there is a still a rise in population.

Public Education is 40 to 50 percent of the state budget. That is a great amount of funds that is deducted from education.

Cerritos has already had to lay off 224 teachers. The budget cuts have affected everyone no one has been except from the economic crisis. 

The Los Angeles Unified School District has taken certain measures to stray away from major cuts as well, reducing the number of days in a school year along with over one hundred lay offs.

Araby talks about the budget and how it should speak for California and what  the priorites for its residents are. He points out that one out of every five adults are unemployed, making up 12 percent of the population.

He also talks about how there hasn’t been any real wage growth, but yet the rich is getting richer and the poor is still staying poor.

“The way California goes is the way of the nation,” he says.

California is getting ready to elect a new governor, and he encourages his audience to pay attention to what the two major candidates are offering and what their intentions are.

He talks about Meg Whitman and how she wants to run California like a business and cut an additional $15 billion from the state budget.

He also mentioned how she also wants to lay off  40,000 state workers and that even though she spent between 115-120 million of her own money for her campaign race, she hasn’t voted for over two decades.

He also talks about Jerry Brown, the former mayor of Oakland. According to Araby, When Brown was in office, he saved state workers, signed Collective Bargaining Rights into law, in addition to tripling funding for Public education. 

Araby believes that these are two very clear choices and he wants students to weigh the facts and make a decision based on your values and priorities.

He believes Californians are at a critical moment in time and now is not the time to be cynical about things.

He wishes that students would get more involved in the political life. He would like for students to understand that they do have a say in how elections turn out and other things that impact our lives.

“Maybe learning a little more will motivate them to become more active,” he says. He believes that the deprivation of California’s youth is caused by general apathy.

“This campaign is very vital for the further of public education. The people that are running and policies that are being proposed makes it a crucial state,” said Julie Ivey, executive director for the Cerritos College Faculty Federation.