Commentary
Crime and Homelessness
This year, a bevy of bills—five in the Assembly and five in the Senate—were passed to address the persistent problem of smash-and-grab mobs and shoplifters, as well as crack down on auto break-ins and car thefts.
For years, thieves have had to surpass the threshold of $950 worth of stolen merchandise in a single incident in order to be prosecuted as a felony. The threshold remains the same, but individuals can now be prosecuted for stealing and then reselling stolen goods. Several thefts at various locations can also be combined to add up to that felony threshold level.
Let’s hope that these new laws will be enforced so that lawless mobs will think twice before breaking and entering businesses in order to generate destruction and theft. Business owners should not have to constantly beef up security and look over their shoulders in order to serve their customers in the community.
College Campuses
The chancellors of both the California State University and University of California systems have directed the presidents of each university to tighten up consistent guidelines regarding student protests on their respective campuses. These directives were formulated as a result of the chaotic campus unrest on a number of campuses during the spring semester. Some campuses already had firm guidelines in place, while others such as UCLA did not.
Public Education
Recently, a bill was passed to mandate a course in financial literacy for high school students, effective in 2027–28. This one-semester course could be helpful for young people who lack financial literacy regarding investing, saving, and spending money wisely. This course could also teach the value of a dollar and the satisfaction of earning money through hard work.
It could also teach students how to write checks, pay bills, and handle credit cards and credit card payments in a timely manner. Far too many students exit high school without a solid foundation of money management. This course could help them to take advantage of earning opportunities to enhance their future in college and beyond.
Restricting phone usage during the day could possibly help reduce rampant absenteeism and help students become more engaged in the learning process. It could also lead to fewer addictive behaviors or depression because students might develop greater situational awareness. Tearing their eyes away from screens could spur intellectual growth, physical activity, and healthy socialization. Engaging in class can assist students in becoming better readers and writers as well.
Phonics has been proven to be effective, because students learn early on how to associate letters with sounds. They then learn how to string consonants and vowels into words, sentences and gradually paragraphs.
With the hope that it will be added to the teaching arsenal, as previous methods have not yielded the desired results, as indicated by low student proficiency scores on state tests.
Even though these actions should have been taken years ago, there is still time to implement policies that could benefit Californians of all ages.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily align with the views of The Epoch Times.
