MTVAmerican Governments In California, there is currently a large homeless population. In the past years the number of homeless has increased, which is why it is an important issue. It is an issue that is constantly talked about in the media especially in state and local news. It is a critical issue in the state of California so much that officials have called it a crisis. The recent data reporting the number of those experiencing homelessness, on any given day in California, is 129,972 (U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2018). Homelessness can be caused by lack of housing, lack of income to afford housing and other factors such as health problems (National Alliance to End Homelessness). Historically, the cost of housing in California did not directly affect homelessness. However in recent years the increase in rent and housing accounts for the rise in homelessness.
This issue is partly due to the cost of housing in California . The cost of rent and housing is high and on the rise and this impacts the number of homeless people. Affordable housing is less available forcing people to live in the streets and face bad living conditions. Even with the help of federal and state housing projects, rental assistance programs, and efforts to establish more affordable housing, the homelessness crisis continue. Homelessness mainly effects those over the age of 24, however the number of homeless youth, even of those enrolled in school is alarming. Males showed higher rates of homelessness and did people of the White race. In California about 34,000 of the reported homelessness, were experiencing chronic homelessness (U.S HUD). The state views homelessness as a serious problem. This year, Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has dedicated 500 million dollars from the state budget to combat homelessness. Governors (Dillon, 2019). California state mayors, have pushed for more money to combat this issue locally. In Sacramento, Mayor Darrell Steinberg has strongly addressed homelessness by proposing temporary solutions such as new shelters. Others city officials do not agree with the amount of spending on homelessness due to the fact that no permanent solutions, like offering permanent housing, are resulting from the funding (Clift, 2019). Organizations are groups that are putting efforts towards reducing the number of homeless population in California. They believe that programs should be available to help the homeless and to provide the services which they need. Homelessness was not a main issue discussed in the presidential election. Presidential candidates chose to focus on other issues within the country.. The topic of affordable housing was however a topic of the presidential election. This issue was addressed by Hillary Clinton, however Donald Trump avoided making the issue a main priority. Homelessness was a main issue addressed in the California Governor election. Newly elected Governor Gavin Newsom has began efforts that would help the homeless. The recent 2018 California Governor election, where Gavin Newsom became Governor has impacted my issue. The governor has made addressing homelessness in California a priority. He has created a new commission named the commission on homelessness and supportive housing. This commission is led by the mayor of Sacramento Darrell Steinberg. Locally, aside from his new position, the fairly new mayor of Sacramento Darrell Steinberg has impacted the issue of homelessness in a positive way. This commission can serve as a long-term impact on homelessness because of its purpose to address homelessness. This commission is supported by California leaders that continue to work together throughout time to find solutions to decrease the homeless population. In the short term the elected state officials continue to work on creating temporary housing and shelters for the homeless, that are offered year round. It is still not clear if the 2020 election will have a impact on the issue of homelessness. However presidential candidates of the 2020 election, like senator of New Jersey Cory Booker, have the history of supporting bills that focus on efforts to reduce poverty. So far Cory Booker, is one of the only presidential candidates that has the bigger background in issues like poverty and homelessness.
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VVAmerican Governments The fact of the matter is that we rely on taxes and the government to ensure that we can safely and smoothly operate throughout our daily lives. There is almost nothing that isn’t in some way or another affected by a tax. During the last election, California had a few propositions that would use taxation in order to fulfill a need in the state. One of those initiatives was to repeal the 2017 Gas taxes. The gas tax was passed to charge an additional 12 cents a gallon for gasoline and 20 cents a gallon for diesel for the maintenance and building of new and existing infrastructure. There are pros and cons for the gas tax but ultimately the majority voted NO on the prop and the gas tax wasn’t repealed. Underneath the surface, the gas tax contained another important component to it.
On top of the extra taxes for buying gasoline or diesel for your car, Proposition 6 would also add another step, voter approval, to the process of making any other laws that would tax vehicle or gas fees. This would not only get rid of the gas tax altogether but make it harder for one to be created again in the future. At least that’s what the description of the initiative would say. The amount of tax on fuel might not seem like much in the short term but if you keep track that amount of money can add up really quickly, especially with gas guzzling or work vehicles. Another reason this was such an important bill was because it was supposed to make more Republicans come out to vote for it. It was backed primarily by Carl Demaio and the majority of Republicans. They explained that the bill hits poorer families harder that count every penny but the rich can careless if they pay an extra dollar or two every time they pull up the a gas pump. Over the course of a year that’s about 500 dollars that those people don’t have now. It wouldn’t be such a problem if everyone could afford a new Tesla Model E but that is just not realistic. Hybrid and Electric cars are still pretty expensive so sadly many people still drive gasoline and diesel cars. The democrats believe that roads are vital for the economy because good infrastructure means that transportation is possible. If transportation is possible then more things can be sold and that means more money in the economy. What this means now for California is that things will remain the same as they were before November 6, 2018. There will still be additional tax on top of every gallon and that accumulated amount of money will hopefully make its way into building new infrastructure, clean and maintaining the upkeep of our highways, and paying the people who will be doing all of that. If we take the following fact into account, “Californians pay 95.5 cents to the government on every gallon of gas. That’s about $18 in taxes and fees on a typical fill-up – much more than motorists pay in other states” (ballotpedia.com), there should be no problem at all when it comes to gathering up money for infrastructure. The proposition might’ve been knocked down at the ballot but we can still expect to see something similar for the 2020 election. There is already an initiative cleared for circulation that will be similar to the 2018 Prop 6. “Transportation Lockboxes, and Terminate High-Speed Rail Project Initiative” will do exactly what the title says. Another factor of the initiative would be to make local governments in charge of infrastructure and that they would need to hire private sector companies to do the jobs but the taxes collected for the projects would go into a special account that would only be designated for those purposes. It looks like Carl DeMaio again in trying to get something to work. The approach he is taking this time is if he can’t strike down the 2017 gas tax completely, he would like to at least make sure that the money is safe and is spent wisely. The lockbox would ensure on the money being spent on the right things and hiring private sector companies would give the local businesses more jobs and opportunities as well as strengthening the overall local economies. Whether or not the right decision for the state were made, the majority of voters have chosen better roads for everyone at the expense of a little more at the pump. The 2017 Gas Tax is here to stay and its effectiveness can be observed already. Many projects have been observed taking place on local highways and streets. The taxpayers dollars are already at work and new smooth roads are always appreciated. Let’s hope for California’s sake that they can continue to reap the benefits of driving on a new, clean smooth road. SMAmerican Politics Women have been fighting for the ability to possess their own rights since the mid 1800’s and since then it has been such a hassle to have supreme sources acknowledge their requests. The right to choose an Abortion has been a public controversy since the 1960’s; the dispute of being pro and anti abortion is the disagreement regarding a women’s right to choose to legally request an abortion or possibly doing something far more dangerous. A woman can choose to have an abortion for many reasons, but the main reason is not being stable enough to bring a child into the world. A woman knows if they are financially ready to support another human being, emotionally stable to be as attentive as possible to a baby, and overall equipped to raise a child; if one is not ready for any of the given obligations being a parent consists they should have the option to say no to bringing a child into the world that has not guarantee of receiving everything it deserves. It is not a matter of terminating a child because one cannot manage to practice safe sex, it is a matter of not knowing how to become proficient in such a fulfilled commitment and possibly not having enough support to raise a human being.
People often believe that a woman should have their own rights to make any decision they want to, especially when it comes to their body; these people tend to be referred to as Feminists. Feminists are obsessed with women gaining the power and rights that they should have had when the legality of humans started. They tend to be the people who are in complete support of having abortion as an option. A feminist may also believe that the woman and the woman only should decide what they do with their body. However, abortion can be affected by anybody involved with the female who is pregnant for instance, the father. Some people believe that the person who got the female pregnant should not have an opinion about whether the woman should decide to get an abortion or keep the baby because they have no say with how a woman should do with their body. This is slightly true, but not everybody tends to consider the feelings or intentions of the male who is apart of the creation of the baby. A male is just as apart of the creation of a baby as a female, so they should have an opinion on whether their partner should keep the child or not. Of course they should not have the right to tell a woman whether or not to get an abortion, but they do deserve a discussion regarding what may be the best solution for the male, female, and fetus. The altercation between pro and anti abortion is ongoing because there seems to be people who want to take this right away from women by making abortion illegal. There is plenty of movements (pro and anti) that happen during elections that attempt to convince voters to vote for the right choice. A very popular organization that has been started to encourage women reproductive rights like contraceptives and abortion is a largely funded program called Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is usually mentioned during elections; the argument is whether to keep an organization that promotes contraceptives and abortion or to cancel the entire institution. During the election in 2018, a particular candidate that was very involved with the issue of attempting to prohibit Planned Parenthood as well as the services they provide was Brett Kavanaugh. He was nominated by President Donald Trump to run for a position in the Supreme Court. He was then later apart of a huge scandal before being confirmed; he was convicted of sexual assault and misconduct so the confirmation was put on hold. Apart from this scandal, Justice Kavanaugh’s has some input about abortion. Justice Kavanaugh claims to be Pro life, but two weeks into his new position in the Supreme Court he was offered a case that was intended to review court decisions that have been made that had temporarily cut Louisiana and Kansas’ funding for Planned Parenthood. He and another judge denied the request knowing that they would not receive the four votes they needed to review the consultation. This made people reconsider if he was really pro life being that he declined the first opportunity he was given to hear a case; especially because it was about Planned Parenthood a major institution that provides services for pro life. If reproductive resources are taken away from women it can cause major long term impacts. Women weren’t born with rights they had to work and fight for them. If abortion is completely banned in this country, females can be willing to do something desperate like going to a foreign country to get a quick abortion or if they decide to have the baby they may not be ready to give the newborn the attentiveness and affection it needs. Therefore, abortion should be kept as an option. RFAmerican Governments A five to ten-year ban should be placed on animal abusers. Five year if it is a misdemeanor and ten years if it is a felony. Animal Abuse is defined as the neglect, not give nutriment or have a safe environment for your pet, anything cruel, anything to inflict harm to your pet, and most recently animal hoarding. On the other side having a five to ten-year ban on animal abusers can be bad not for the person abusing the animal but for the family members. The abuser may be the father or an older person according to the Human Society “predominantly men under the age of 30 and women over the age of 60 intentionally abuse their pets.” But if the ban is put on them other members of the family wanting the animal back would not be able to if they are in the same household for that specific time period depending on if it was a misdemeanor or a felony.
Another viewpoint discussed in “Five-year ban on animal ownership for felony abusers?” By the Citizens Court of New Hampshire states that “...that judges already have the power to ban offenders from owning animals for any amount of time. A mandatory minimum of five years will unnecessarily tie judges’ hands when a more nuanced approach may benefit an offender’s rehabilitation.” Animal Abuse has been around for many years ranging back to “Fighting dogs for sport, for example, has been traced back as far as the 12th Century” (Learning to Give) so this issue has been going on for a long time. Now animal abuse can be seen in farms, puppy mills, and at home. According to the Article “The Animal-Cruelty Syndrome” by Charles Siebert Before 1990, only six states had felony provisions in their animal--cruelty laws; now 46 do. In majority of the state’s animal abuse is seen as much as a felony. Some of the states include California, Florida, Colorado and many more. In other states animal abuse is seen as much as a misdemeanor such as North Dakota and South Dakota. California in 1988 on future ownership states that it may can ownership as a condition of probation but states like Delaware put in force in 1994 that shall ban future ownership for 5 years for misdemeanor; and 15 for a felony The relationship between animal abuse and other types of abuse can be related because if they can abuse the animal, they also can-do other things that are not morally right. According to Charles Seibert in his article “Significant reason for the increased attention to animal cruelty is a mounting body of evidence about the link between such acts and serious crimes of more narrowly human concern, including illegal firearms possession, drug trafficking, gambling, spousal and child abuse, rape and homicide.” If a person is to abuse their animal it can relate to other issues in the world that can also relate as a misdemeanor or a felony so, why not have the same kind of punishments as the crimes that other people commit to correlate how severe animal abuse is. This issue matters because animals should not have to be abused in households. Animals can suffer and should not have to go through what people in our society put them through. A defining moment that shined a light in “2007 arrest of the N.F.L. star Michael Vick for operating an illegal interstate dog-fighting operation in Surry County, Va” (Charles Seibert) The election that had the most impact would be state and local because of how many states either do have the misdemeanor of 5 year and the felony of 10 years. Colorado introduced a bill that stated that a 3-5-year ban be placed on a person trying to own an animal and that can be adjusted GEAmerican Governments In previous years, people used to really get worried about car crashes, plane crashes, gun violence, and HIV. Nowadays, more people are killed by drug overdoses. According to the national institute on drug abuse, every day, about 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids. The addiction to opioids is a very dangerous and serious national crisis that touch public health as well as social and the quality of living standards in an economy. The question that get asked all the time is “what exactly is the opioid epidemic? Is it about prescription drugs or heroin?” The answer would be that it’s a combination of both problems. Opioids were being recommended to treat chronic pain, but people didn’t realize the problems associated with the usage of opioids in the long term which the most important point would be getting addicted to the medication. When people get hooked up on these medications and can’t get them from their providers anymore, people substitute it with extremely strong and toxic drugs like heroin.
When these companies launched years ago, they announced that these medications won't be addicting to the consumer. This false announcement made doctors prescribe these medications crazily. People start misusing them by not following the prescription instructions which lead to many death cases due to addiction. Opioids overdose rate began to increase. Because prescription opioids are similar to, and act on the same brain systems affected by, heroin and morphine, they present a permanent abuse and an addiction, particularly if they are used for non-medical purposes. The most dangerous part is that people start getting creative by crushing the pills and inhaling them, or taking them via snorting or injecting the powder, or combining the pills with alcohol or other drugs. Also, some people didn’t take them exactly as prescribed (e.g., taking more pills at once, or taking them more frequently or combining them with medications for which they are not being properly controlled); and it is possible for a small number of people to become addicted even when they take them as prescribed. It is estimated that more than 100 million people suffer from chronic pain in this country, and for some of them, opioid therapy may be necessary for their case. So now we have two arguments. Some people believe that these control medications are necessary and should have less regulations on them. The others believe that opioids shouldn’t be prescribed to begin with and can be substituted by non-addicting pain killers. President Trump stated in his first State of the Union speech in 2018 that his administration “is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need.” Unfortunately, the President hasn’t delivered on his promise to seriously confront the opioid epidemic. Now opioids are the deadliest drug overdose crisis in the US history. A $3 billion dollars was given by the President toward the crisis. This money is primarily for addiction treatment, which remains in short supply in the US. According to the 2016 Surgeon General’s addiction report, only about 10 percent of people with a substance use disorder get specialty treatment — in large part due to a lack of access to care. People argue that the US needed to invest in more money for the crisis so we can narrow that gap and eventually try to get rid of it. President Trump and Congress also passed the Support for Patients and Communities Act, which takes some positive steps to increase access to addiction treatment, scale back the over prescription of opioid painkillers. This act is very important because it helps many people that don’t have access to the addiction treatment center or can’t afford to be in one. Looking at a study that was done in 2017, the east coast seems to have higher rates of death from opioid overdoses; West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma. The opioid prescribing rates in 2012 shows that the east coast have higher rates compared to the rest of the US. Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and more states. Recently, we are seeing a lot of states suing big companies that manufacture the control substances. On March 26, 2019 Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin agreed to pay $270 million to avoid state court trial. On top of that they are funding a national center for opioid addiction and research in Oklahoma City. A total of 1600 law suits were made against that company because of the way they advertised for the medication which was very wrong and misleading. Most presidential candidates aren’t talking much about the opioid epidemic. Elizabeth Warren want to fight the opioid epidemic and put serious resources toward ending the crisis. Some of her ideas are more research toward alternative painkillers. I believe that this crisis needs more attention and work put into it so it can be reduced/ eliminated. With the help of our new presidential candidates, I hope they will shine the light on this epidemic so we can have healthier, happier population. JBAmerican Government California State University: Sacramento sent out a survey in 2017 to look at theirstudents’ experiences and to assess student knowledge of the campus’ health and counselingservices. The survey revealed that about 60% of their students had experienced overwhelming anxiety or depression within the previous 12 months. The CSUS survey also showed that students were either not aware of the services available to them or not utilizing them if they were aware of the services. To help bridge the gap between their students and available services, CSUS has put in time to bulk up their services and focus on outreach and student engagement. Being aware and an active part of CSUS’ Student Health and Counseling Services, viewing these results caused me to wonder what other California universities are doing to ensure their students have access to adequate mental and physical health services, food assistance, and substance use education. Upon looking into this, I found that the national prevalence of college students’anxiety is 41.6% and prevalence is 36.4% for depression (American Psychological Association, 2013). I began to wonder how many universities offered a specified amount of student services and what the quality of those services looks and feels like to those who access them. When beginning my research, I found that public universities are required to provide a specified amount of services to their students living with disabilities, but there is little expectation and almost nothing written as a concrete requirement for the kind of services I feel are vital to student success. I have had the unique opportunity to service the California Youth Crisis Line and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Through this work, I have heard from many students who are experiencing extreme stress and anxiety over their grades and overall school life and the expectations that follow. Here in California, we have a housing crisis, and this is something I hear about from many of the students with whom I speak. I began to wonder, is this too being addressed by our schools?
I chose to look at three Northern California public universities to compare services. Looking at Sacramento State, San Jose State, and UC Davis, I found that all three of these health centers are accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, the highest accreditation available for health care centers. I found that all three universities offer wellness education, immunizations, STI screening, CalFresh on campus, pharmacy services, some kind of emergency funding, physical therapy, career counseling, individual counseling, group sessions, alcohol and substance use education and resource referral, case management, safe rides, and some sort of food pantry. Each of these campuses also have instated a smoke or tobacco free policy. However, when looking further into these services, I found that the amount of assistance provided within each of these sections of care varied greatly at each university. For instance, CSUS offers 14 groups and SJSU offers 13, but UCD only offers three. In another instance, all three universities provide emergency funding, but UCD’s is an emergency loan that must be paid back within 30 days, SJSU’s is $500 and cannot be used for housing--a disheartening fact considering that San Jose is now the most expensive city to live in in the United States, and CSUS’ emergency fund amounts to $1500, can be used on housing, and does not have to be paid back. I also found that CSUS is the only campus of the three that offers emergency housing on site and UCD is the only campus that offers laboratory work in their primary care. In the coming weeks, I plan to connect with students about their experiences at UC and CSU campuses and complete the compilation of the remaining research to be done on the rest of these campus’services. I am happy to see that many of these services are offered and these all look great on paper, but am curious to learn the actual experiences of these students. What are the waiting times, how were they treated once obtaining services, what would they change if given the opportunity? From there, it is my goal to advocate for student services to have a minimum standard, frequent feedback from their students, and to take the voices of their students to heart and make the necessary changes. Throughout many of the recent elections and in our political conversations, universities and higher education have been a topic of interest. However, most of these conversations surround the cost of higher education without discussing the quality of the universities or student experiences once they have entered these universities. I agree that something needs to be doneabout the astronomical cost of being a student in today’s world and the crippling debt thatfollows these students once they move their tassel from the right to the left, but I am concerned with the helpfulness of change agents currently on these campuses. Again, going back to the cost of attendance, student health fees are included at these universities and it is time to ensure students are getting what they are paying for and receiving the necessary help along the way. MAAmerican Governments Were you ever taught as a little kid to look away from a homeless person to save you some empathy? I was. The question is why? Why would we be taught to look away from such a serious issue. We should be attacking this cruel problem head on. California’s homelessness population has grown a significant amount as housing prices continue to rise. This issue involves unsheltered and homeless individuals and has impacted many families all over the world. The homelessness issue includes not only people who can’t seem to afford to make ends meet, but also people with minimum wage jobs, parents, kids, the LGBTQ+ community, domestic partners, and more. There are many causes to the homelessness problem in the United States. Some involve domestic violence issues, lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, low wages, substance abuse, un-supporting relatives, natural disasters, physical disabilities, mental illnesses and more. There are so many reasons as to why and how people end up living on the streets it’s hard to simply list them all. You never know where life is going to take you and it's crazy to even think how one person can go from having a home one day, to living on the streets the next.
It’s easy to blame a homeless person for their actions that led them to the streets, but the truth is, even people working minimum wage jobs at over 40 hours a week with no sick days or vacations, fall under what is considered to be the standard housing income. Homelessness needs to be addressed head on by ensuring jobs that pay a living wage, adequate support for those who cannot work, access to health care, and by ensuring affordable housing because there are way too many Californians who go to sleep homeless every night. A man went down to Los Angeles in Skid Row and asked homeless individuals about their concerns for the then upcoming 2016 presidential elections. A homeless woman named Katherine who is a registered nurse, was asked about what she thinks politicians should be focusing on in the election. She answers this question by stating that politicians should be focusing on programs that are helping students proceed their education so that they wouldn’t end up like her, at a homeless shelter. Another homeless woman states her concerns about politicians not emphasizing on low income housing. Several more homeless individuals talk about how they are too living in shelters even with a job, and emphasize employment concerns in the election. Homelessness comes with many horrific effects on those certain individuals. According to the article, "Causes and Effects of Homelessness" (July, 2007), homeless individuals encounter much more health problems than the average person. For example, they are more likely to suffer from Cold Injury, Cardio-Respiratory diseases, Tuberculosis, Skin diseases, Nutritional deficiencies, Sleep deprivation, Mental Illness, Physical, sexual assault, Drug dependency, Mortality and HIV/AIDS. Homeless individuals not only suffer from health issues but they also suffer from loss of self-esteem, becoming institutionalized, increase in substance misuse, loss of ability and will to care for oneself, increased danger of abuse and violence, increased chance of entering the criminal justice system and development of behavioral problems. This is something that should not be ignored any longer. We as a nation need to find a way to help decrease the homelessness population in the country. The election was not really talked about by either presidential candidate in the 2016 election and here is why. According to Joel John Robert’s article “Reasons Why Homelessness Is Not Discussed in the 2016 Presidential Election”, he states reasons as to why homelessness is not talked about by the presidential candidates. Robert states one of the reasons is because blame is mostly always directed toward the homeless individuals. It is so easy for a person to say that homeless individuals are at fault for their “actions” that led them to where they are. Presidential candidates in this case do not want to lose those voters who will initially get upset at the fact that a president would find empathy in these individuals. Another reason as to why presidential candidates don’t talk about the homelessness issue is because the delegate math doesn’t add up. Although this serious issue was not talked about by any presidential candidate, the problem of homelessness in the United States was definitely talked about in the 2018 midterm elections. The House and the Senate both suggested that tax legislation was presenting an opportunity to advance provisions from The Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act. One third of the House signed on to support the act. The bipartisan legislation addressed the nations severe shortage of affordable and rental housing by strengthening the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. They presented us with Proposition 1 and 2 which were long term investments to increase housing for those who need it the most. Proposition 1 would authorize $4 Billion in bonds to build affordable housing for veterans. Proposition 2 would allow use for existing mental health funding to build supportive housing for homeless people suffering from mental illnesses. Luckily, both of these props were voted yes to Californians. Check out some original visuals from our student projects at our class instagram. @the_civic_experience on instagram. Student artwork, infographics, maps, graphs, and "how-to-guides" are all posted there-the work is awesome!
ALOAmerican Governments Throughout politics, there is a constant and never-ending issue in the United States education system. One of the most substantial issues surrounding education is the annual salary or teacher pay that educators receive. Teachers are not substantially paid well enough for their job. There is a huge gap and imbalance when it comes to teacher pay across the United States. A clear example of this would be New York being the highest paid average at 78,576 and Oklahoma being the lowest paid at 39,306 a year (Frohlich, 2018). This low pay has forced teachers to have to look for other options. Many face great financial difficulties and have to resort to getting a second job or even a third job. Others move to different states with higher salaries on average or leave their profession to pursue careers elsewhere (Campbell, 2018). Numerous amounts of teachers have also turned to do walkouts and go out to protest for better salaries and conditions. Although many teachers say that they did not initially go into teaching for the money, it is becoming increasingly difficult for teachers to make ends meet with their salaries. The site VOX talked to various teachers who don’t get paid enough and have second jobs. One teacher said “I don’t feel like I’m on the mark,” said Johnson, who has a master’s degree and 24 years of teaching experience, and earns $52,000 a year. “ I always wonder if I am giving 110 percent.” (Campbell, 2018). As can be seen, this issue of teacher pay has steadily increased.
Historically, the United States has not been very favorable when it comes to teacher pay in education. According to a study released by the Economic Policy Institute in, it showed that “teacher pay has fallen relative to other professionals. Many saw the report as evidence that policymakers aren’t doing enough to attract and keep teachers in the classroom.” They also found that by, 2015 teachers nationally earned 11 percent less. These studies clearly demonstrate that generally, all teachers are suffering from an economic defeat. This issue of teacher pay not only expands to teachers, but to all other educators and staff in the education system/ school districts. If teachers aren’t getting paid enough, it's most likely that the majority of other school staff are not receiving adequate pay as well. With so many staff being underpaid in the U.S there is bound to be a failure and burden on students as well. This issue may seem just to affect teachers and their income, it also, in turn, affects thousands of students across the country. Without the proper amount of qualified educators, students have a decreased chance in attaining academic achievement. The growing financial stress for educators not only expands towards them but to other areas as well. The outcome of the latest election had a fair amount of impact on the issue of teacher pay in education. Although the national election did not have anything to do with education, the state, and local elections had a bigger influence. This is mostly due to the fact that the majority of the money set aside for public schools comes from state and local coffers. Some short term impacts or immediate actions can be governors, candidates, and officials addressing the issue of funding in education and teacher pay. These talks and speeches were greatly needed surrounding the topic of funding and teacher pay. The received attention did not bring about any immediate change but did allow for discussion to open up for future decisions. The long term impacts from the election have brought up positive effects for the education system. Education was a greatly discussed topic among governmental candidates among both parties and was the second most mentioned topic in advertisements. This great coverage led to ballot initiatives and proposals for raising money for education funding. An example of this would be Senate Bill 451 in West Virginia which intended to raise pay for teachers and to establish public charter schools for the school year 2019-2020 (Wdtv, 2019). Someone in particular that emphasized on the issue was Senate President Mitch Carmichael. Carmichael stated both before the 2018 midterm elections and during his legislative session that he is committed to providing an average of 5 percent increase pay for teacher and other staff. He also has stated that the most important element in the education process is the classroom teacher. He adds in by saying that teachers must be competitively compensated and that teachers are the key components in effective education (Carmichael, 2019). Despite having candidates who talk about education at the state level, the upcoming 2020 election will most likely not bring up this issue. The topic of education and school funding is crucially important for the United States as a nation. However, with other more important issues beforehand, Education lies at the back of the line when it comes to national elections. "Ken Anderson"American Governments Gun control has been a very topical political issue discussed in the recent elections both at the presidential and midterm elections. Donald Trump who was the Republican nominee was a very pro-gun rights advocate who thoroughly believes in the citizens rights to bear arms according to the second amendment of the constitution. Hillary Clinton who was the Democratic party nominee was a very pro-gun control advocate who believed that much more regulation and banning of weapons was need here in the United States. There have been seven mass shootings since 2016 that had more than 10 unfortunate victims’ lives taken from them. Some of these reach numbers upward of fifty-eight people killed. Some of these shootings include the Las Vegas shooting at the Jason Aldean concert as well as the Sandy Hook school shooting and the Orlando night club shooting. There have also been smaller attacks on other schools and churches across the United states. The difficult question that many argue is whether heavy regulation of legal U.S guns as well as banning of certain legal U.S guns will solve the problem or increase the amount of violence committed on innocent victims? Gun control and the second amendment were believed to be some of the major deciding factors in the Presidential election of President Donald Trump. There is no database that accurately depicts the amount of people who own guns in America but from surveys done around the country it is predicted that about 42-46% of citizens in America live in a household where there are guns. That is almost half of the United States citizens who own guns. Many of those who are very protective of their rights to own guns and defend their property, family and property from those who try to steal or harm.
In a somewhat recent study done by epidemiologist Anthony Fabio of Pittsburgh’s Graduate school of public health in 2016 found that lawful gun owners commit less than a fifth of all the gun crimes. Fabio teamed up with the Pittsburgh police to trace the origins of all the 893 firearms that police had seized at crime scenes in 2008. What he found out was that 79% of those guns seized at a crime scene, the perpetrator was carrying a firearm owned by someone else. Meaning that they were stolen and illegally sold on either the black market or on the streets. An article by The New York Times talks about the amount of people who died at the hand of a gun in 2018. The number was 40,000 which was up 1,000 from the previous year in 2017. These numbers included the mass shootings such as the one in Las Vegas and all the other ones across the United states, this number also includes single fatality shootings as well. As you read in depth of the article however you will read that more than two-thirds of those deaths were suicides by gun. So, while the numbers seem to have increased a little bit, it seems as though guns weren’t the major issue in shootings of innocent people. The big problem seems to be people’s mental health state. Republicans have been stressing this as being the source of the violence that has taken place in the United states in the past couple years and seems to be their focus. Democrats, however, feel that the main issue is that states aren’t doing enough background checks and that guns are the issue not the people who are behind them necessarily. They want to regulate the sales of guns and ammunition. Regulating means that there would be background checks on the sale of ammunition, which has happened in California at all retails shops that sell ammo and guns, as well as stiffer restrictions on certain parts that are made for certain weapons. The parts include the magazines being able to drop out with just pushing the magazine release button, certain types of pistol grips aren’t allowed on certain weapons. These are just some of the proposed regulations that the Democratic party is proposing nationwide. As previously mentioned, some states have already put in to action some of these regulations. Some states however, such as Missouri have changed their laws to make any attempt to change their second amendment right with regulation from the federal level to be illegal in its state. They have essentially banned any federal regulation in their state and its citizens follow exactly what the constitution says. We are beginning to see other states slowly follow in their footsteps as well. As mentioned, some states have already put in to action some of these regulations. Democrats have also been in a long fight with the NRA and views about guns and what they believe to constitutionally correct. Democrats haven’t seemed to be very successful with their proposed gun regulation and control agenda nation wide especially with the election of Donald Trump as well as the Republican election of Senate and House of Representative leaders. President Trump said in a statement his feelings about gun control as being that he doesn’t want to limit citizens right to bear arms but to fix defection gun legislation and spend more time and money on our mental health treatments. |
AuthorUndergraduate student generated content. Blog posting and updating done by Kristina Flores Victor, Assistant Professor of Political Science at CSUS Archives
March 2020
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