May/June 2012

Tour of the Nature Research Center Meet

At the Museum of Natural Sciences Main Museum Reception Desk Off the Bicentennial Plaza 11 W Jones St 10 am June 4 Join other leaguers for a tour of the new Nature Research Center. We will meet at 10 am at the museum and will tour for an hour and a half. Afterward we will have lunch at the Daily Planet Cafe Email Eve V at vitaglione@worldnet.att.net if you are joining the group.

Help Wanted!
The League plans to have a regular voter registration activity for new Americans that takes place at the Customs and Immigration Center when citizens are naturalized. Ideally, we will have a team of at least ten to twelve persons that will be willing, three or four times a year, to take part in offering registration help and or guidance as needed. We will be calling, but it would help tremendously if you would email us ( lwvwake@bellsouth.net) if you are willing to be part of this. The ceremony is quite inspiring and it is always heartening to assist those who are anxious to exercise the most precious right of citizenship.

Cheers from the Chair

First of all I must say a few words about the recent election. Lets be horrified that the turnout was extremely low and not just accept that it is the norm for primary elections. Furthermore, that issues and office holders are often actually decided in the primaries seems to escape many voters. To let so few people actually make such important decisions seems unconscionable. And then of course, there is the Amendment that passed! This civil rights tragedy will continue to reverberate for years to come. My apologies to you all for being absent from the transportation presentation at Aprils LWL. I was told that it was quite informative and interesting. We obviously need to keep thinking about the future of our growing population and ways to accommodate it. I was glad to hear that our League budget was successfully passed at that meeting. Please take note of the great opportunity Eve has given us to see the new Nature Resource Center. Thank you, Eve, for giving us a chance to visit this wonderful new community resource as well as an opportunity to do some visiting. Looking forward to seeing you all! Mark your calendars now for Womens Equality Day Celebration (WED) on August 27th, 5-7! We celebrate gaining the right to vote but there is still work to be done; the composition of government leadership and other issues currently being considered attest to that. Participation in party preparations for WED by members is appreciated. Many hands make light work. We will need help with invitations for all the local officials, greeters as the guests arrive, flowers for the many small tables, donations from all who are willing to help sponsor the event (this is our fund raising activity for the year) and of course food for all the hungry guests. Please mark the occasion on your calendars in big letters and let Vicky Gerig, tvgerig@aol.com, Meredith Lundy, merelundy@aol.com or Betty Ellerbee, (invitations) ellerbetty@aol.com know if you can help. Enjoy the summer. Mary

Spring Activities
New members Therese Schag, Carole Schroeder, Gabrielle Brown, Joyce Gad, Sara Williams and Carolyn Morrison gathered for lunch with some seasoned members of the membership committee at the home of Claudia Kadis in late April. Vicki Gerig gave an overview of the league and its activities and longstanding non-partisan policies. A good time was had by all and many thanks to Claudia for her gracious hospitality. Welcoming and retaining our new members is important, and we will have a write up about our new members in the next Voter. The League will do outreach work to a girl scout troop on May 29th. Hats off to the NC Center for Voter Education which made a Voter Guide available for all 100 counties in North Carolina.

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Education Committee Meets 1st Wed. of the month The Committee will not meet during June, July, and August but the commitment to our mission goes on. At our May meeting we rounded out our discussion of Diane Ravitchs, Death and Life, with comments about the impact felt in several school districts by constant, severe upheavals. In the coming months and years local decisions by our Wake County Board of Education will continue to impact the quality of schools in Wake County. We plan to be a part of that discussion. We also discussed the recently released LWVUS consensus on the Federal Role in Public Education based on the responses of 377 Leagues across the country. Included here is a summary of that consensus. The complete document is also included in this Voter. Summary - Role of Federal Government in Public Education All levels of government bear the responsibility of providing an equitable, quality education for all children, pre-K through grade 12. This includes leadership, suggested curricula structure, and a national assessment tool. The federal government should also provide both competitive and noncompetitive funding to promote equity. The states bear the primary responsibility for public education and equity. The basic role of federal funding should be to bring equity to all populations by funding mandates with non-burdensome but compliance based reporting and regulations. It should target children living in poverty and those with special needs, access to high quality teaching, access to health care and nutritionally adequate food. Early learning is crucial. It should be available to all children as well as funding to support parent education, support services for them and their families and continued research to document quality early childhood education programs and services. It should be noted that our local position of long standing also includes: Support of Wake County Education Policies that assure socio-economically balanced schools and equal educational opportunity. Input is always welcome. Mary Martorella, chair

Dorothy Jane Youtz, a league member since the early 1940s, died on April 25. A celebration of her life will take place at Church of the Holy Cross, 2301 W Millbrook, on May 26th at 2pm. Members of the Immigration Committee remember her many contributions during the study for consensus.

TRANSIT IMPROVES THE ENVIRONMENT .by reducing air pollution, supporting walkable communities and enabling land conservation. Please visit www.capitalareafriendsoftransit.org for talking points about the proposed transit plan. The Wake County Commission must vote, by the end of June, to place a referendum on the November ballot. We urge you to write a personal note to county commissioners asking that the citizens of Wake County be given the opportunity to vote for a 1/2 cent sales tax increase to provide the necessary funds for this move forward.

Link to LWVUS weekly updates: http://hq-salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5950/t/0/ blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=120864

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Federal Role in Public Education Position

The LWVUS Board approved a new Education position at the March 2012 (March 25, 2012) Board meeting. The position is based on responses received from the 377 Leagues across the country who participated in the Education Study. The League of Women Voters believes that the federal government shares with other levels of government the responsibility to provide an equitable, quality public education for all children pre-K through grade 12. A quality public education is essential for a strong, viable, and sustainable democratic society and is a civil right. The League believes that the role of the federal government should include the following: Provide leadership and vision to promote a quality education for all children; Provide broad common standards developed by educational experts upon which states and local education agencies can build; Provide a suggested curricular structure or framework as a guide to state and local education agencies to develop their own curricula; Provide a national assessment that clearly informs teachers, parents and students about how well individual students have mastered criteria established at the national level; Provide a national assessment that informs districts how well their populations compare to other populations similar to theirs; and Provide a combination of competitive grants and non-competitive funding to states and local school districts to achieve equity among states and populations

While the League recognizes that there are instances where the federal governments involvement is the only way to achieve universal change (desegregation, special needs population, gender equity), we also recognize that primary responsibility for public education resides with the states. In accordance with the League of Women Voters position on The League of Women Voters believes that an equitable, quality public education is critical for students Equal Rights, we continue to support equity in public education for all through:

Broad guidelines for accountability, leaving implementation to the state and local education agencies; Adequate funding sources that support the broad goals of national standards; And mechanisms for local and state funding with adequate federal support for mandates that require less burdensome, compliance-based reporting and regulations.

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(Continued from page 4) The League of Women Voters believes a basic role of the federal government in funding education should be to achieve equity among states and populations on the basis of identified needs. This should be done with full understanding that equity does not mean equal, given that some populations are more expensive to educate than others following:and some localities have specific needs. The League believes that the federal government should be primarily responsible for funding any programs mandated by the federal government on local education agencies. Although the League recognizes equity in education depends on meeting basic human needs of children and of their families, the costs associated with providing equitable access to safe neighborhoods and secure housing do not belong in the education budget. Major programs of federal funding for public education (i.e., Elementary and Secondary Education Act) should be targeted toward children living in poverty and/or children with special needs. The federal government has the responsibility to monitor and support access to the following: High quality teaching and learning, supported by quality current learning materials and well maintained educational facilities; and Access to health care needs (i.e., hearing, vision, dental, immunization, school-based health clinics at the secondary level, etc.) and nutritionally adequate food (i.e., school-based meals under free and reduced meal programs).

The League of Women Voters believes that the first five years of a childs life are crucial in building the foundation for educational attainment and greatly impact success or failure in later life. Additionally, the League believes quality, developmentally appropriate and voluntary early learning experiences should be available to all children, with federally funded opportunities going first to children of poverty and/or with special needs. The League believes that the federal government should support the following:
Early childhood education programs that include funding for parent education and involve child development, health, nutrition and access to other supportive services such as mental health care for all children and their families; Research that documents quality early childhood education programs; and Research that demonstrates the importance of linking state and local community partnerships with effective early childhood education programs and services.

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League of Women Voters of Wake County 3509 Haworth Drive Suite 404 Raleigh NC 27609 919-783-5995 Www.lwvwake.org

Calendar June 4 Tour of the Nature Research Center July 2 Dues Invoices Mailed July 16 Invitations to Honorees for Womens Equality Day Mailed July 16 Save the Date Post Cards Mailed August 1 Invitations for Womens Equality Day Mailed August 27 Womens Equality Day at Unitarian Universalist Church Join us for mailing groups on the above dates. Always good conversations and not a few good laughs. Email ellerbetty@aol.com for more information.