by Suzanne Potter
February 6, 2024 – Today is Safer Internet Day, a day to focus on ways to help your family thrive in the digital age.
The National Parent Teacher Association and a Silicon Valley company called ConnectSafely are offering an online presentation available starting today called Smart Digital Parenting: Navigating Screens with Children and Teens.
Yvonne Johnson, president of the National Parent Teacher Association, said parents and children need to have open, friendly, nonjudgmental discussions.
“The most important thing is we can’t panic when things go wrong,” Johnson explained. “You might hear something that freaks you out, right? But you have to listen calmly and ask questions, and then focus on solutions. I think that also creates the trust between the parent and the child.”
The PTA advised parents to focus on what they call the three T’s: talk, try and teach. This means parents should talk to their kids about the apps and games they like, try them together, and teach kids about security and privacy settings.
Mitchell Prinstein, chief science officer for the American Psychological Association, said when children are exposed to violence online, especially real-life incidents on the news, parents need to give context.
“It’s very important that we talk with kids about their own level of safety, primarily, when they see scary images, to help them understand why what they’re seeing online is highly likely or less likely to happen to them,” Prinstein urged. “Because kids’ fundamental issue is going to be their own personal protection, whether they can still rely on adults.”
California lawmakers passed a landmark bill in 2022, forcing companies to ensure their digital products do not harm children and teens before they hit the market, and require privacy measures to be included from the start. However, last September, a judge put the law on hold to determine whether it violates the tech companies’ First Amendment rights.
CA scores 37th in country for K-12 education funding
California ranks 37th out of 48 states for spending on K-12 education – according to a new report from Rutgers University, the University of Miami, and the nonprofit Albert Shanker Institute.
The annual School Finance Indicators Database found that California is spending more than 14 percent less than it did before the great recession of 2008.
Report co-author Professor Bruce Baker of the University of Miami said California is considered a “low-effort” state because its spending on education is not commensurate with its economic might.
“They’ve improved in the last few years, but they were in such a hole for so long because of tax and expenditure limits imposed in the late 70s – Prop 13,” said Baker. “So, California’s effort is still below the national average.”
The report finds that 69 percent of students in California live in underfunded school districts, and 32% in chronically underfunded districts.
However, California fares better – ranking 14th in the country – on shrinking the so-called “opportunity gap,” which measures the difference between the highest- and lowest-funded school districts.
Congress allocated billions to help schools weather the pandemic.
Mary Cathryn Ricker, president of the Albert Shanker Institute, said although the federal government did allow states to budget that money into successive school years, the investment is running out and there is no consistent long-term funding plan to replace it.
“Right now, everyone is concerned about the so-called fiscal cliff coming when federal pandemic aid runs out,” said Ricker. “But school funding in most states actually fell off a fiscal cliff 15 years ago and never got back up.”
For the coming fiscal year, California faces a $38 billion deficit. Nonetheless, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $291 billion budget proposal avoids cuts to K-12 schools, which serve almost 6 million students.
