2008 Woodie Awards
KQED's Scott Shafer speaks to students about California's issues
Carina Woudenberg
Date created: 4/18/05 Section: NEWS
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 Scott Shafer speaks in the Skyline´s main theater, April 5. |
On April 5, Scott Shafer of KQED came to Skyline's main theater to ask Skyline students to think about issues that they may not think about all the time: issues in California involving health care, education and housing.
"What I want to talk about today are some of the changes that have happened in California in the last 40 years," Shafer said. "I want to sort of sketch a picture of California: how it's changed, how it continues to change. Hopefully by the time we're done this afternoon, you'll begin to see how so many of these issues which may seem disconnected from one another...are, one way or another, interrelated and how each of these issues affects us in a very real way."
"California Dreamin'", the title of the presentation, was named for the song made famous by the Mamas and the Papas. While people were filing into their seats in the main theater, the song played lightly in the background.
"In 1963, the year the song 'California Dreamin" was written was a time of great growth in California," Shafer said, "there were 16 million people living in California. Today, there are nearly twice as many." Shafer also says that one quarter of California's population came from another country, and that this rate has tripled since 1963.
Shafer says that a lot of people come to California because it is a pleasant place to live.
"California, to this day, seems to attract not just ordinary people, but extraordinary people, people who have vision, who have a spark about them, an entrepreneur spirit, the idea that they want to come to this place and take advantage of everything it has to offer."
Shafer speaks out on the quality of education in this state. "When you look at California schools today, what's happening?" He explains that there are many places that are doing well, but schools in urban places such as San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles and Sacramento, kids are having a harder time. According to Shafer, in the Oakland school district, less than half of the students graduate. Parents are getting discouraged with the school districts and more and more parents are pulling their kids out and putting them in private schools. The students remaining in the public schools are often at a disadvantage; they may be poor or not speak the language very well. Shafer says that parents may feel that they have solved their own problems by pulling their kids out of school.
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