U.S. issues are on CSBA's agenda
Federal Board Member Action Day is March 19
Published: March 1, 2014
CSBA is poised to follow up on last month’s Advocacy Institute in Washington, D.C., with a grassroots effort reaching out to California’s representatives in Congress in their home-district offices.
CSBA’s Federal Board Member Action Day will be Wednesday, March 19. It’s a special opportunity for board members to promote CSBA’s Governance First federal legislative agenda in personal visits to congressional district offices. Briefing papers on key national issues impacting public schools and students will be available March 10, ahead of an orientation and strategy session on March 14. Watch for details at www.csba.org.
It’s crucial that school board members participate, as they’re the only democratically elected officials representing the many voices of local communities on education and children’s issues. It’s also an opportunity to make your voice heard in a coordinated, effective way—without flying cross-country. As CSBA President Josephine “Jo” Lucey said: “If you don’t show up and voice your opinion, how will your representative ever know what you think and what you value?”
NSBA event previewed federal issues
Lucey’s comment comes at the end of her Vantage Point column this month (see page 3), where she relates her experience at NSBA’s Advocacy Institute in the nation’s capital Feb. 2-4. Lucey, CSBA Executive Director & CEO Vernon M. Billy and the rest of CSBA’s Executive Committee led a delegation of 21 other California school board members, joining more than 700 others from around the country to brave Washington’s frigid winter at the Advocacy Institute, the successor to NSBA’s longstanding Federal Relations Network Conference.
A thaw has eased the chilly partisan gridlock that has gripped Congress in recent years, ending the automatic cuts required under sequestration and giving the country the first true federal budget in years. “This means no additional cuts for federal programs in the current fiscal year—and in many cases, program grantees will see some extra dollars in their next funding allocation,” according to a CSBA background paper on federal funding.
Building on those developments, California’s delegation to the Advocacy Institute met with congressional and Obama administration staff members to discuss federal funding, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and other issues. CSBA Assistant Executive Director for Governmental Relations Dennis Meyers and Legislative Advocate Erika Hoffman also briefed key congressional staffers—serving not just California’s representatives but the powerful committees that control federal education legislation—on the state’s Local Control Funding Formula. They presented the innovative formula, which targets extra funds to help students from low-income families, English learners and foster youth, as a possible model for equitable funding at the national level.
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