Politics 101

"I thought it was good at bringing out the issues, especially considering they only had since yesterday," said Beth Bhatnagar of the League of Women Voters for Central San Mateo.

"The incumbents were in the Senate and the House didn't adjourn so we found out on Friday evening we had to find other people for the debate."

Executive Producer for KCSM-TV, Dante Betteo said he had to rebook everything on Monday. "It went really well, we did what we set out to do, which was a community service," Betteo said.

The panel discussion was changed to candidates running in the 19th district, including incumbent Lou Papan (D-San Mateo).

This was followed by a debate over Proposition 38, the school voucher initiative between, Don Wolfe, President of the Board of Trustees for West Valley Community College and Tom Fitzpatrick, of the San Mateo County of Education.

Wolfe spoke in support of the proposition and Fitzpatrick spoke in opposition. "This was a very interesting conversation," Betteo said. "It's a hot topic."

Wolfe argued that the State currently spends billions of dollars on remedial studies in community colleges which should have been mastered in grades k through 12. "Private schools are far ahead of public schools," Wolfe said.

Fitzpatrick said Prop 38 is counter to what school officials know about schools. "Prop 38 removes resources from public schools," he said. Fitzpatrick also said Prop 38 will not have regulations on teachers and how the money is used. "Teachers at the schools will not even have to have a college education and there are no regulations on how the money is spent," he said.

A senior at Hillsdale High School, Roxanne Kollman-Schroder, asked about standardized testing and how it was related to Prop 38. Kollman-Schroder said standardized testing is not taken seriously by students because they do not feel it assesses what they learn.

"It tests us on stuff we never learned and doesn't cover the things we do learn," she told the Daily Journal.

Another senior at Hilllsdale high school, Heidi Norgaard, addressed the candidates from the 19th district. "I asked them how I was going to be able to own a home and how they planned to make housing more affordable," Norgaard said.

She said she was not satisfied with their responses to her question and that the candidates strayed from actually addressing her concerns. "They were talking about building a new city on the Moffet land. It's a good idea but it doesn't seem very realistic," Norgaard said.

All of these students are among the 70 students who are part of a new program at Hillsdale High School called "Social Action", the program is a combination of classes in english, economics and government which focuses on social action and civic awareness.

Barbara Santos, a junior at Hillsdale said they are working hard to encourage people who are already registered, to vote in the Nov. 7 election. "We will have a phone bank and ask people if they want a vote by mail ballot," Santos said.

Jeff Gilbert, a teacher at Hillsdale said the students are concentrating on precincts in the County where registered voters are not voting. The students will start the program this Saturday. "Our goal is to get 500 ," Santos said.

Beth Bhatnager of the League of Women Voters said she was really pleased with the event. "We are especially pleased with the involvement of the Hillsdale high school students who are part of the social action class," she said.