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USA Today: Why wealthy California couldn’t stop the Los Angeles schools from going on strike

March 24, 2023 – USA Today’s Terry Collins covers the LAUSD teachers’ strike. Managing Attorney John Affeldt is featured in the story:

Although California has moved up in per-pupil spending, it’s still below the national average, said John Affeldt, a managing attorney at Public Advocates, a San Francisco nonprofit that focuses on education, housing and transit equity.

He said there’s a mismatch between the need, the wealth and the effort.

“Given that we have among the highest number of low-income students, English language learners in the nation, and are among the lowest math and reading scores nationally, we ought to be a top-five state in education spending,” Affeldt said. “And we can get there, given how wealthy our state is.”

Read the article.

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