Policy

See statement on Charter Schools in LA below.

EDUCATION: Quality, Free Public Education from Cradle to College

Wealthier Californians have consistently enacted self-interested policies over public education. Proposition 13 has led to decades of defunding schools serving low-income families and communities of color. White dominant narratives are at the center of our curricula, crowding out the stories and histories of our Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities. Schools have to compensate for deepening systemic barriers impacting our communities including lack of healthcare access, unlivable wages, housing insecurity, policing, mass incarceration, and more, all on slimmer budgets compared to the rest of the nation.

While budgets continue to fall, student enrollment is dwindling in areas where families can no longer afford to live. Simultaneously, a growing marketplace of schools has splintered student populations across too many different school networks, leaving neighborhood schools to become under-enrolled and further under-resourced. In addition to these pressures, countless dehumanizing reforms have imposed accountability measures through standardized testing and teacher value-added scores, leading to conflicting priorities and an education system focused on numbers rather than students.

We need community schools that equip teachers and staff with the resources and support to develop the whole child, not only academically, but also socio-emotionally, artistically, and athletically.

Current definitions of school “quality” create a tyranny of quantitative performance measures contingent on overtesting and business modeling. Instead, Godfrey envisions schools as learning environments that enable students to choose whatever paths they want to pursue as adults while affirming their identities regardless of language differences, legal accommodations, cultural backgrounds, or any other needs they may have. As a former teacher, Godfrey will continue to support all teachers and other school-based workers in cultivating these learning environments, with fair compensation and treatment. He will also advocate for:

• The funding, staffing, and training to ensure schools can support the diversity of students who benefit from our public education system and the varied needs that stem from their lived experiences.
• More nuanced data disaggregation based on race and ethnicity, so that our school systems can be more responsive to the needs of specific communities served by our public education system.
• An overhaul of History/Social Science and English curricula to integrate principles, lessons, and stories from Ethnic Studies to disrupt lessons that perpetuate narratives rooted in white supremacy, colonialism, and imperialism.
• Implementation support for the FAIR Education Act, which would provide schools and districts access to textbooks and curricula that include LGBTQIA+ histories; support would mean educators are able to build cultural competency and navigating implicit biases to be able to teach the content well.
• Ensuring teacher education programs require new educators to build knowledge and skills in creating affirmative learning environments, including coursework in anti-oppressive and anti-racism pedagogies.
• Ensuring the reinstatement of affirmative action into California’s higher education system, particularly if Proposition 16 does not pass on the November 2020 ballot.

Reform school funding to be able to serve the whole child.

Godfrey will fight to increase funding for public education through a combination of:

• Revising budget allocations to use cumulative enrollment rather than average daily attendance to provide additional funds for districts with larger, more diverse student bodies that may experience higher rates of absenteeism due to systemic barriers such as healthcare, housing, immigration status, and more.
• Expanding the state’s block grant allocation for special education funding, alongside advocacy for full federal contributions (currently promised but unfulfilled).
• Re-working funding sources for pension payouts to relieve school districts as a primary source for pensions while ensuring that employees receive their pensions.
• Pausing the creation of any new schools that contribute to the thinning of student enrollment in our public school system so that we can launch a plan to ensure that the health of our public education system is sustainable and strong in the long-term. A specific statement about charter school can be found below.
• Defunding school police and using that additional funding for supports, such as support for mental health programs, that replace the need for policing.
• Supporting the overall vision for Schools and Communities First, which ensures corporate accountability for contributing its share of taxes to public schools and services, particularly if Proposition 15 does not pass on November 2020’s ballot.

Along with reforming school funding, Godfrey will fight for fair wages and health benefits for teachers and for classified school staff, many of whom are relegated to part-time status so that they are not owed health benefits. Godfrey will also work to close gaps in the resources, programs, and experiences offered at community colleges, as compared to CSUs and UCs. Godfrey believes in returning our public higher education institutions to their tuition-free visions; our top-notch higher education system should not be contingent on a student’s ability to take out loans.

COVID-19 has shown that we must act now to make sure that all students have access to a quality and safe public education, especially in an emergency.

Godfrey will also advocate for:

• A permanent infrastructure for emergency distance-learning days beyond the pandemic (similar to snow days in other areas of the country), given the dire effects of fires, climate, our current pandemic, and other unpredictable events.
• Ensuring broadband access for all Californians if SB 1130 does not pass out of this year’s legislature, not only for the purpose of ensuring digital learning at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also for all of our communities’ telehealth and communication needs.

HEALTH CARE FOR ALL

Godfrey has been endorsed by the Los Angeles chapter of Health Care for All - California.

In a global pandemic, universal access to health care must be among any government's top priorities. But rather than expanding the coverage provided by the Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration continues to attack and destabilize this essential safety net for millions of Californians. Our state legislators in Sacramento have taken some steps toward protecting existing care, but they fall far short of guaranteeing the access to quality health care that is necessary for our communities -- a problem that a single-payer healthcare system would solve.

According to a recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California, 70% of Californians are "somewhat worried" or "very worried" about their ability to afford health care. Even though lawmakers have proposed -- and failed to pass -- bills to expand access to Medi-Cal (California's current public health insurance program), Medi-Cal as a program inherently reinforces inequitable experiences in healthcare and continues to enable profiteering among private companies. We need advocates like Godfrey who will fight for, instead of dragging their feet, to universal health care.

Godfrey has been endorsed by the Los Angeles chapter of Health Care for All - California, and has also pledged to neither seek nor take money from the tobacco industry.

Godfrey will fight to defend marginalized communities' access to care, and pledges to:

• Ensure equal access to quality health care for everyone, including our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities, vis a vis single-payer healthcare
• Ensure that single-payer healthcare also supports undocumented Californians of all ages, with a commitment to outreach focused on helping residents understand their health care rights.
• Protect sexual and reproductive health services that are under attack from our federal government, including birth control and abortions, prenatal and postnatal care, and treatment for sexually transmitted infections and abuse, and eliminate the ways we penalize women with the astounding costs of egg retrieval and in vitro fertilization
• Implement services and structures for LGBTQIA+ communities, including evolving state-wide definitions of basic primary care to include gender-affirming medical needs.
• Ensure access to proper health care for our unhoused community.

These imperatives have only become increasingly urgent during the COVID-19 pandemic. The coronavirus has disproportionately affected vulnerable populations, both in infection rates and in their exposure on the front lines as essential workers.

In addition to the above, Godfrey will also advocate for:

• Economic justice and a living wage for all healthcare workers.
• Increased incentives for physicians and clinicians serving marginalized communities.
• Restoration of funding for community-based clinics around California.
• Weekend and evening access to medical care facilities for working communities.
• Adequate health services for students in public schools, including mental health care.
• Investment in educational opportunities to create more sustainable health care career pathways for Californians.

Redistributing excessive billionaire wealth.

California claims to have the most progressive tax structure in the country, but we must definitely go further to break down the widening gap between those at the top and those barely getting by. Sacramento enjoys incrementally increasing taxes here and there, but California has too many billionaires who hoard their growing wealth, while the state becomes too expensive for many who have lived here their whole lives. Godfrey will fight to increase taxes on the extremely wealthy to fund public supports and services by proposing:

• a 5.5 percent tax increase from its current rate on every dollar a Californian hoards over $50 million in net worth.

Holding businesses accountable to acting better.

But we must go beyond merely taxing the extremely wealthy. Companies must start closing the widening gap between their highest-paid and lowest-paid employees. Godfrey will fight for:

• Enabling local enforcement of anti-discrimination laws protected by the Fair Employment and Housing Act, instead of forcing cases to wait in line at back-logged state agencies before being investigated
• Incentives for businesses to increase their minimum wages to an actual living wage.
• Legislation that will hold companies accountable to closing their wage gap, especially for employees of color and women, trans and non-binary employees.
• Approvals of new developments, including housing, to include “community benefits agreements” drafted with long-time community members that counter the effects of gentrification and displacement, particularly when an area is home to predominantly low-income or Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) communities.
• Commercial rent stabilization for family-owned or small businesses meeting demand in their communities to protect them from gentrification.

In the long term, Godfrey will fight for a universal basic income, including for undocumented Californians, so that basic survival does not rely completely on one’s ability to work.

A fair workweek and benefits for all workers.

Every worker, including hourly workers, deserve the same benefits and stability given to a well salaried employee. Godfrey will fight for:

• Extending paid family leave to 12 weeks for every employee without fear of retaliation or demotion. Employees earning at or below minimum wage should earn 100% take-home pay to ensure the stability and wellbeing of their family.
• Protections for hourly workers to have predictable schedules, so that they can account for their expected wages and benefits, as well as plan for any other jobs or responsibilities they might need to juggle in order to meet the cost of living in Los Angeles.
• Expanded workers’ rights for undocumented workers to include access to unemployment insurance and protections available to documented workers who face retaliation for union organizing.

IMMIGRATION: No life is illegal: Fundamental human rights for all

In California, every human life deserves dignity. California is not the sanctuary state it claims to be. A hierarchy of human worth has been created based on self-interest mired in white supremacy, xenophobia, and capitalist interests. No one’s safety or well-being should be based upon their immigration status. Policies full of loopholes do an insufficient job of protecting and supporting all California residents.

Until our federal government can abolish ICE, Godfrey will fight to minimize its impact as much as possible, ensuring that immigrant families feel as safe and secure as possible.

Demanding Humane Treatment for Immigrants

Sacramento must do everything within its power to protect all California residents, regardless of citizenship or immigration status, from the oppressive entity that is ICE. This means:

• Banning solitary confinement in the name of protection.
• Demanding accountability for the mistreatment of those who have been, or are currently, detained by border and detention officials.
• Ensuring that all migrants and asylum seekers are granted real due process.
• Protecting migrants’ access to services and work opportunities while stuck in court proceedings so that they may provide for their basic needs.
• Severing all possible interactions between the current criminal legal system and the current immigration enforcement system indefinitely, so that undocumented immigrants are not automatically entered into detention for any engagement with the criminal legal system.

Moving Beyond Providing Sanctuary to Providing Access

Godfrey will also advocate for:

• Increasing state funding to improve and expand legal services programs for undocumented people, including deportation defense, regardless of criminal history.
• Ensuring that the state does not use immigration status as criteria for discrimination and inequitable treatment when distributing public benefits, particularly in public health emergencies like the current pandemic.
• Advocating for federal pathways to security and citizenship for more undocumented residents, including DACA and DACA-like protections, as well as the reconsideration of DAPA with the next administration.
• Granting undocumented families the right to vote in municipal and state elections, while ensuring that they are protected from ICE while exercising this right.
• Creating a public-facing, service-industry grade system that reports an establishment’s treatment of all of its workers, including forms of exploitation such as wage theft.