History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Californians by chance, students by choice
- 11-17-2010
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Opinion by Timm Herdt/Ventura County Star
Timm Herdt is chief of The Ventura County Star state bureau.
One of the few poignant moments of the fall campaign for governor came during the candidates’ early October debate in Fresno. A young woman in the audience was handed a microphone and given a chance to speak. She told how she had graduated as valedictorian of her high school class, enrolled at Fresno State University and was now about to graduate. She was concerned that she would not be able to put her education to use because, since she had been brought to California as a young girl when her parents illegally immigrated here, she was not a legal resident. She asked the candidates where they stood on the federal Dream Act, which would allow people in her circumstance an opportunity to attain citizenship. Meg Whitman told the young woman, “I am so pleased by your success.” Then Whitman told her that there should have been no place for her at Fresno State in the first place because, “California citizens have been denied admission.” Jerry Brown had a far different answer. “Meg Whitman wants to kick you out of school because you are not documented,” he said. “That is wrong — morally and humanly.” (more…)
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