Janet Reilly for California State Assembly, AD 12
CAMPAIGN CONTACTS
Campaign Name: Janet Reilly for Assembly
Address: 320 West Portal, San Francisco, CA 94127
Campaign Phone: 415-391-4088
Campaign Fax: 415-834-0575
Campaign E-mail: janet@janetreilly.com
Campaign Website: www.janetreilly.com
POLITICAL BACKGROUND
Director, Golden Gate Bridge Board, Appointed, January, 2003 - Present
- Vice Chair, Building and Operating Committee
Member of the Newsom Policy Council on Children, Youth and Families, Appointed, January 2005-Present
If you ran for public office but were not elected, please list those races below:
N/A
YOUTH ISSUES
1. Good schools from pre-K to graduate school require adequate funding and
innovative leadership. How would you use your elected office to improve public
education and/or make higher education affordable and accessible for young people
in our community?
I completely agree that we are never going to have excellent schools without making education a funding priority and without leaders who are willing to stand up to make educational opportunity the cornerstone of our state government. We all know that educational opportunity creates the skilled workforce of tomorrow, but we seem to have lost the will to invest in this priority. Here in California we spend $6,700 per pupil K-12. The national average is $7,000. When more than 20% of our students don’t speak English as a first language and when our teachers must contend with highest-in-the-nation living costs, we must be above the national average, not below it. Students in California deserve to be first not next to last.
I feel very strongly that one of the reasons our children are not doing well in elementary school is because they haven’t attended preschool, and they don’t have the social and the educational building blocks necessary for kindergarten. We should offer the opportunity for any four year old in California to attend publicly funded preschool. I have been an active proponent of this year’s ballot measure that guarantees universal preschool access,
In addition, access to higher educational opportunities is one of the priorities of my campaign. Last year was the very first year that we actually turned away qualified high school graduates from our public colleges and universities. We must not let this happen again. If unchecked, this is a trend that will continue at a time when we must have an educated workforce. In order accommodate additional students in the next 10 years, we are going to have to build more schools, and we are going to have to use our buildings more efficiently: adult education programs at night in our schools; more advanced placement (AP) classes in high schools; increasing the use of technology in colleges to connect people to classrooms.
You know, it sounds simple but ask any parent what makes great schools and they can tell you: great teachers and great principals. We need to increase teacher pay and incentives that target the best teachers into areas where they are most needed. Moreover, we need to give teachers ongoing training to improve their skills. Too many schools have to fight for the professional development they need for teachers to maintain skills and bring fresh ideas to the classroom.
We should increase emphasis on math and science at the highest and lowest levels of our schools. Our global economy has changed, and we have to prepare our students for the jobs of the future.
2. How will you use your office to combat enduring racial segregation and inequality in
our education system?
As a Bay Area mother, I am concerned about the inequality that still plagues our school system.
While the racial disparities in our schools are largely controlled at a local level, I believe that we can use our leadership positions to help advocate for greater equality by investing in great schools in every neighborhood.
Last week’s report in the San Francisco Chronicle about segregation in the schools was particularly distressing. Monitoring done out of UCLA suggests that 50 of San Francisco’s 119 schools are segregated up from 30 only four years ago
Of even greater concern is the achievement gap between white and Asian students and other students of color. While test scores have gone up across the board on average in San Francisco, the city’s African American students have the worst test scores of any African American students in any urban area in California.
We must do everything we can to close the achievement gap in minority communities.
That’s why I support universal preschool for every child, programs that attract great principals and teachers to the schools that need help most, and greater higher educational opportunities that ensure that every student can afford college.
I also believe we need to create more after school programs, summer job opportunities and mentoring programs to help provide opportunities to young people during the hours when they are not in school.
Environmental justice is a primary focus of my platform. Unconscionably high rates of asthma and environmentally induced learning disabilities have a tremendous impact on children in minority and disadvantaged communities across the state. Pesticide drift in the central valley has a disproportionate impact on our Latino population. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area we must move to immediately close down the power plants and adequately clean and restore the health of the naval yards. We are just beginning to understand the horrible impact that these toxins and emissions have on neurological and psychological disorders. How can we effectively teach our children when their ability to think and breathe is compromised by their environment? Racial inequity in our schools is one symptom of the much larger societal issue of racial injustice. And, unless we tackle the larger issue of racism in society, our schools will never provide equal education.
Racial inequity is a major issue of my campaign. Beginning on February 1st, we’re teaming up with the James Byrd Jr. Racial Oral History Project to combat racism here in the Bay Area by hosting twice-monthly oral history meetings where we invite community leaders and neighbors to discuss and describe how racism has impacted their lives. I hope members of the SFYD will join us at these discussions. The meetings will take place on the first and third Wednesday of every month starting at 6pm. Meetings will be held at our headquarters, 320 West Portal Ave., unless otherwise noted on our website.
3. There will be one or more constitutional amendments on the ballot in 2006 that will restrict marriage rights in California and attempt to undo existing domestic partnerships laws. How will you use your race and position to defend the human rights of GLBT families and make the defeat of these amendments a state wide priority?
I support equal rights for all Californians and support gay marriage. I will actively work to lead the way for these legal rights, and I will use my leadership role to help defeat anti-gay marriage proposals.
I am proud to live in San Francisco where Gavin Newsom stood up for this critical human rights issue and I would be proud to help lead this fight on a state level.
4. Young people face special challenges to obtaining health insurance and many go without. How would you use your office to work towards making health insurance available to all?
I support universal health care legislation that would make health insurance available to every single Californian. This is the number one issue in my campaign.
As someone who has worked for years with charitable organizations that fill the gaps in health care, I understand the need for elected officials to lead on this issue. I believe we need radical fundamental reform in the way we deliver health care in our state and across our country. It’s time for California to lead the way by providing access to quality health care for every family regardless of their ability to pay. I believe the single payer system is the best option for universal care. Every major industrialized country has single payer health care. We have a moral obligation to provide care to every human being.
Universal health care is not going to happen overnight. I will be a leader in the fight for universal health care – but as we work to pass this urgent reform, I will also fight to:
- Guarantee coverage to all children under 18
- Extend Healthy Families coverage to all the parents of eligible children
- Focus strongly on prevention – health clinics, immunizations, obesity and other ways we can reduce emergency health costs by investing in the problems early on
- Lower cost of prescription drugs
- Reduce costs throughout the system through improved technology
- Address the 7 million uninsured Californians who are driving up costs in the system for everyone
5. The war in Iraq has claimed the lives of too many young people from our community. Money spent on the war is needed for healthcare and education programs that young people in our community sorely lack. Nobody wants to cut and run from Iraq. But our
country and community needs an exit strategy. How would you use your office to bring our troops home?
Although the State Assembly does not have a direct role in national foreign policy, I would use my leadership role to argue for a responsible foreign policy that creates alliances abroad instead of enemies. I think we need a responsible plan to stabilize the Iraqi government and bring our troops home as soon as possible.
I agree that critical resources are being spent abroad that could be used to provide health care for every American, invest in our schools and shore up our social security system.
6. Women’s right to choose is under attack in our country. Young women suffer especially from curtailed access to reproductive health services. How would you use your office to protect a woman’s right to choose and/or expand access to reproductive health services?
I strongly support a woman’s right to choose. And, I support measures that will actually help reduce unwanted pregnancies – better education, better healthcare and increased economic stability. I believe that so called “late term abortions