Inga Davis

Inga Davis is a teacher at San Carlos Charter Learning Center.

Why is education important to you?

Education provides the most important opportunity for students to learn to interact with the world outside of their family. It exposes them to a wide variety of people, adults, responsibilities and choices. It provides a safe place to learn to fail and recover and, most importantly, it allows young people to begin to see themselves as individuals and begin to gather passions, interests and ideas that will sustain them throughout life.

How has California's lack of education funding negatively impacted you?

I was in California's public schools from 1971 - 1984, with one year in a private school in the Netherlands, in 1978-9. I noticed a huge gap in educational opportunities when I returned to California in 1979. In particular my high school was bare bones. We didn't have a full time school librarian or school nurse and besides sports, there were few other extra curricular opportunities. My teachers were often talking about their lack of adequate compensation. I believe that not only myself, but many of my friends, lost opportunities to explore, art, music, and other important elements of education. There was no college counseling and I felt sympathy for all of the caring adults trying to take care of me and my friends with so few resources.

Now, as a public school educator I feel the lack of adequate resources even more acutely. My school is in a relatively wealthy neighborhood with a strong parent educational fund, but even with this financial support we struggle to make ends meet. To provide high quality education a school's greatest investment is in its teachers. Teachers need to be treated like professionals and many educators are willing to work long hours to find new ways to support their students. However, many talented young people are leaving the profession, since their salary does not even match the estimated low income minimum in the Bay Area of $105,000. Educators tend to be people who love community and families and yet most cannot afford to live in the communities where they teach or to even own a home and have children of their own. This impacts who is interested in teaching, turnover in schools, and the willingness of educators to continue to pour themselves into their work.

Our school is only able to offer music and art classes with volunteer support. Children thrive in environments that have multiple ways of learning and expression and California's unrealistic budgeting is harming another generation of young people. I have friends who teach in more impoverished communities and the situation is worse. We are failing this generation and in particular sustaining the long held tradition of marginalizing poorer communities with fewer opportunities to thrive.

How has the increasing cost of college impacted you?

My children feel worried about how much their education is costing us as a family and a wary of student debt. This is limiting where they are choosing to go to school.

What made you want to pursue a career in education? How have budget cuts impacted your work?

I love working with communities in a dynamic and thriving environment. Teaching gives me an opportunity to face new challenges every day and to need to always be learning - about my content, my students, and the world around me to make my instruction relevant. My colleagues are intelligent, passionate people who inspire me and my students to be our best. Hearing their constant worries about budgeting and how the struggle to make ends meet is disheartening.