Closing College Doors

Headlines, Seattle PI on Friday July 16th, "UW No Longer Accepts Transfers."  Wow.  and coincidentally, that morning I was meeting with a group of 20 MESA students to talk about voter registration and civic involvement.  MESA is Math, Engineering, Science Achievement - a program throughout Washington state to encourage and support minorities and women in science and engineering fields.  I'm on the advisory board of Seattle MESA, and volunteer my time to help the program in whatever way I can. 
 
It's close to my heart because my undergrad was electrical engineering at Stanford, a challenging and male dominated field.  I loved the challenge and hated that I constantly felt the need to prove my abilities.  and I was lucky to have had a quality K-12 education to prepare me for such a challenge.  It made me think "what about the other kids who aren't so lucky?"  So off I went into AmeriCorps, not long after graduating with my valuable EE degree, to ensure a level playing field.  I've worked in nonprofit orgs ever since.
 
After creating tutoring programs, parent/school liaisons, language translation, and neighborhood leadership training, I-884 is the best way I know to create real education opportunities for ALL kids.  Small, individual programs are great, but will not by themselves change the bigger picture that some kids get lucky enough to go to schools that have small classes, college expectations, and parental support, and some kids don't.  I-884 is an opportunity for all of us to say YES to a quality education for all kids.
 
I asked the MESA students, all juniors in high school from around WA state, how many of them wanted to go to UW.  Almost all raised their hands.  None had read the headline that morning.  All were interested in what they could do when they turn 18 and can vote, and even what they can do now in the meantime.  Many asked to volunteer for I-884.  Their hope is my inspiration.  They deserve a chance to be Washington's next engineers, programmers, and scientists.  They may end up designing electronic voting machines we can trust, or curing cancer, if we let them.

Overwhelming endorsements

It's been one week since we turned in all the signatures to qualify the I-884 Education Initiative for the November ballot, and already we're getting people from all over the state emailing us to say they want to personally endorse the initiative. It's incredible! From Aberdeen to Zillah, we received petitions full of signatures in the mail, and now people who care about education want to make sure their name is associated with I-884.

We've gotten emails from superintendents, teachers, parents, business owners, preschool teachers, and everyday citizens, all pledging to do their part to make sure their friends and family members know about and support I-884. It is really heartening to see how many people truly care about education, and making sure education opportunities are available for all children, regardless of their family income or skin color.

I feel honored to be a part of this historic people's education initiative, and will work extremely hard to ensure that we will succeed.

To learn more about I-884 and how you can help, go to www.edtrustfund.org. We need to make sure everyone in Washington state knows how I-884 will create opportunities for their children and grandchildren, and how it will help boost Washington's economy and improve the future of our state.

I-884 makes history with over 327,000 signatures!

On July 2, 2004, Citizens for the Education Trust Fund submitted over 327,000 signatures to the Secretary of State to qualify I-884 for the November ballot.

It was really exciting to load the endless boxes of petitions onto the big yellow school bus and then see them actually turned in to the Secretary of State. Governor Gary Locke, Terry Bergeson (Superintendent of Public Instruction), Jean Carpenter (WA State PTA) and Jeanne Anderson (Foundation for Early Learning) were in Olympia at the press conference, and Representatives Gutierrez-Kenney and Chopp were at the press conference we held in Seattle at our campaign headquarters. Students of all ages helped load the petitions, wave signs, and answer questions about I-884 in both Seattle and Olympia.

The Seattle PI took pictures of the students loading the petitions onto the bus. Click here to see the photo and article: photo and article

The Olympian also did a story with photos. Click here to see it: Olympian Article

Thank you so much to each of you who worked so hard to gather signatures. We made history yesterday, with the 4th largest number of signatures for an initiative ever in Washington State. Keep up to date on this initiative and how you can help at www.edtrustfund.org