Opinion

This month the United States celebrates National Free Newspaper Week, and on April 1, an auspicious date with lively associations, the Berkeley Daily Planet will be celebrating our second anniversary of revived publication, timed to coincide with the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the city of Berkeley. It’s hard to believe it’s been two years, but here we are, doing well and even expanding. -more-

It’s one thing to read statistics about the sorry state of education in California, but it’s another to talk to someone who’s in the trenches trying to cope with it. At a party this weekend I met a woman who’s bucking for sainthood as a teacher in the Los Angeles public school system. She’s an energetic, lively person, who’s successfully raised two kids of her own. At the age of 60, after a pleasant career which included a Ph. D. and a series of administrative jobs, she decided to “give something back” to society by resuming the school teaching career she’d given up at an early age. (She’s a red diaper baby—maybe that explains her desire to be socially significant.) -more-