Two CHHS students acknowledged for creative efforts

When it comes to spending state taxpayer dollars, many people think they can do better than the politicians elected to do the job. Students in Mary Jo Zenk’s Introduction to Nonprofit and Public Administration class got a chance to find out. During the spring semester, she invited a representative of Next 10, a nonpartisan, nonprofit policy organization based in San Francisco, to lead her class through an exercise involving budget priorities, called the California Budget Challenge.

The students had to decide how much to spend on education, prisons and healthcare, and then they decided whether to raise or lower taxes. As part of Next 10's public education efforts, the organization also sponsored a contest for students to weigh in on the budget – in a creative way. They could submit an essay, short story, poem, blog post, song lyric, video or comic strip explaining the choices they think the state should make to balance the budget. Zenk gave her students the option of entering the contest or submitting an assignment that required them to balance the budget. About half opted for the creative approach. Two of Zenk’s students were among the top finishers.

Emily Abrahams’ letter to the citizens of the state (from “Governess of California”) earned a runner-up award. It included this money-saving suggestion for balancing the budget: “Want to know an, um, interesting fact about this Golden State?,” she asked in her letter. “We spent waaaay more money on criminal justice than we do on education. Huh?, you may be asking. Are we a state of outlaws? No, that’s not it. We just need to prioritize who should actually be in prisons.” Betsaida Macias was also named a runner-up for her poem, “Sincerity from the Heart.”

Her poem included a plea from students:

“As a freshman, tuition was expensive. As a senior, it’s become a huge expense. Budget cuts in education continue to make no sense Let’s freeze tuition rates!”

The winning entry was submitted by a group of students from Presentation High School of San Francisco, who submitted an illustrated story, “California Budget Catastrophe.”

Zenk won a $100 gift card for classroom supplies awarded to the teacher with the most student entries.

She recommends that everyone try the budget challenge. “It’s an excellent tool to help people understand the process and the tradeoffs,” she said. “The most exciting part for me was afterward, when some of the students told me that the exercise has motivated them to vote.”

Read all the contest entries here. Photo: California State Capitol in Sacramento