Friday, May 29, 1998
SPEAKSOUT:
SPEAKS OUT: What are the most important issues facing the state
of California? Bilingual education, affirmative action, political
apathy … well nothing else seemed to really matter. Of the
plethora of issues to write about, these were the ones that seemed
to be on most of your minds.
"I would look at the education system and lower student fees. I
would also decrease the class size to make sure all little kids get
attention."
Mina Abolos – 2nd Year, Biology
"I’d look at education first because there’s still a lot of
problems, and they said that a lot of funds would go toward
education and there wasn’t. A lot of schools (still) need books,
and teachers need to actually care about the kids and not just
treat education like a job."
Amber Beard – 1st Year, Psychology
"I think (I’d focus on) healthcare, and I’d make it so that
everybody has it. It wouldn’t be a private thing; every one would
have it."
Lela Cruz – 3rd Year, Physioscience
"I would clean up the environment, especially the beaches.
There’s a lot of pollution. The beach clean-up would be mandatory –
kind of like (having) garbage men,
but they’d be there to clean up the beach."
Jason Gross – 1st Year, Biology
"I would worry about affirmative action. I would reinstate
affirmative action; what type, I don’t know, but it would be
something. I would address the issues of minority enrollment and
the drop in minority enrollment at the UCs."
Jesse Isaacs – 5th Year, Microbiology
"I would improve public education (by) giv(ing) more money to
public education."
Craig Koller – 1st Year, Undeclared
"I think I would do something about the smell in
central California, Riverside county and driving on the 91. Both
the cow smell and the inner city smell. It seems like they should
be able to come up with something; there’s people deodorant, so why
can’t they come up with cow deodorant? I think we could alleviate
the inner city smog by shutting down the refineries and walking
everywhere, just like the settlers did. But then there’d be the
horse smell."
Paul Sardis – 2nd Year, Agricultural Management
"I think the biggest issue would be equality between schools …
having the same caliber of elementary schools all over, so that
when they get to a higher level, they can go to the college of
their choice, as opposed to starting at the college level and
trying to catch up there."
Wendell Walters – 5th Year, Sociology/Computing