Making final pitch
Candidates vying for the 38th Assembly talk education at forum
The candidates for the 38th Assembly District answered questions about education — addressing topics from charter schools to discrimination — at a forum Friday at Santa Clarita Valley International
charter school.
Questions were asked by a panel of students and adults from the school community.
The candidates were first asked about the possibility of separating Common Core standards from the assessment component.
Christy Smith, a Democrat and member of the Newhall School District board, said the 2001 No Child Left Behind program introduced by President George W. Bush pointed the nation’s education system in the right direction in terms of accountability.
“We want to make sure that how we’re doing that best serves kids, isn’t too impactful to their psychological wellbeing and gives us a really clear snapshot going forward of what instruction needs to look like in order to advance those kids to where we need to be,” she said.
Dante Acosta, a Republican Santa Clarita city councilman, said teaching to the test does not help students improve critical thinking.
“Any standard that doesn’t take into consideration regional differences or local differences is not a good standard,” Acosta said.
Fellow Republicans Jarrod DeGonia, deputy to Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, and Tyler Izen, a reserve police officer, said the education system focuses too much on testing.
“We’ve become so focused on the assessments of Common Core that we don’t have time for the instruction for the real-life interaction between students and teacher,” DeGonia said.
All of the candidates voiced support for charter schools.
“We will keep them public and free because that is a significant important value to the state of California,” Izen said of charter schools.
Acosta said there is a statewide movement to change the way charter schools are run, and he wants to stop it.
“I will fight attempts to challenge the charter authorities, and I will fight attempts to change the way things are done in charter schools,” he said.
While saying that she supports quality charter schools, Smith called for “bad actor” charter schools to be removed from the education system.
“The best way we protect every school is to make sure there is transparency and accountability whether that is a public school district or a public independent charter,” Smith said. “(Charter board) meetings have to be open to the public. The budgets need to be completely transparent and balanced.”
Responses to a question about handling discrimination drew some disagreement.
DeGonia mentioned the transgender bathroom issue. The federal government recently sent out guidelines telling school districts that transgender students should be allowed to use a bathroom consistent with their gender identity. California already has a similar law.
“I do believe a lot of the policies enacted in Sacramento to address a lot of these issues painted the issue with too wide of a brush,” DeGonia said. “Was it a significant statewide problem that local districts couldn’t control?”
Smith strongly disagreed, saying certain rights are protected by federal law.
“Those protections are federally guaranteed. That’s not something a local institution should be deciding on,” she said. “I would be dedicated to make sure the most stringent laws that disallow discrimination are followed.”
Acosta said discrimination is wrong, but he believes students should have the “right to be able to use the bathroom in privacy.”
“By trying to swing the pendulum too far the other way, we’re actually discriminating against a whole class of people that their rights are being infringed upon,” he said.
Izen said there are strong laws in place now to fight discrimination, and he believes they are fairly well enforced. He said discrimination is caused by ignorance and can only be solved with education.
“We’ve got to educate those people who are ignorant,” he said.