Does Anybody Care About the Children?

California spends nearly $18,000 per student each year more than most states, and more than many families spend on groceries, gas, and rent combined. Yet what are we getting for it? According to the latest state testing data, only 47% of students are proficient in English, and a dismal 36% in math. That means nearly two-thirds of our kids can’t do grade-level math, and half can’t read or write at the level they should. This isn’t just a crisis it’s a betrayal.

Meanwhile, the California Teachers Association and other powerful unions are funneling millions into political causes that have nothing to do with education. In 2024 alone, the CTA spent over $12 million on political donations, almost exclusively to Democrats. Nationally, the NEA and AFT have poured $43.5 million into left-wing PACs and ideological groups since 2022. Less than 10% of their budgets go toward actual classroom representation. The rest? Lobbying, woke training, and social justice activism.

Instead of focusing on literacy our schools are training kids to be activists. Gender ideology, LGBTQ curriculum, and identity politics are being pushed as early as kindergarten. Parents are told to stay quiet while their children are taught that biology is a suggestion and that America is a system of oppression. The goal isn’t education, it’s indoctrination.

Hospitals and the medical establishment are complicit. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, once a leader in pediatric care, has paused gender transition surgeries and hormone treatments for minors but only after federal pressure and public outcry. Stanford and Kaiser have also halted these procedures. Yet the medical field continues to treat gender confusion with one option: transition. No second opinions. No alternative therapies. Just a fast track to irreversible decisions.

And what kind of future are we preparing these kids for?

In California, the median home price is over $900,000, and only 15% of households can afford it. Monthly payments for a modest home now exceed $5,800, requiring an income of $232,000 just to qualify. That’s more than double the median household income, which sits around $96,500. The American Dream is slipping away.

Add to that the crushing weight of our national debt, now over $37 trillion. That’s $111,000 per citizen, and growing by the second. We’re saddling the next generation with a bill they’ll never be able to pay. And for what? A broken education system, bloated bureaucracy, and political theater.

We can do better.

It’s time to dismantle the Department of Education a bloated, ineffective agency that’s more interested in pushing ideology than improving outcomes. Let states and local communities take the reins. Let parents have a say. Let teachers teach, not indoctrinate.

And maybe it’s time for a law banning public sector unions from making political donations, especially in California. If unions want to represent workers, fine. But they shouldn’t be kingmakers in Sacramento or Washington.

Our kids deserve better than this. They deserve schools that teach, hospitals that heal, and leaders who fight for their future, not sell it off for votes.

Does anybody care about the children?

I do. And I know you do too.

That’s why I’m running for California State Assembly District 28. Because if we don’t break the one-party supermajority stranglehold on Sacramento, we’ll never restore balance, accountability, or sanity to our state.

This campaign isn’t about politics as usual. It’s about making California livable again for working families, for small businesses, and most of all, for our children. It’s about restoring hope, rebuilding trust, and rejecting the idea that decline is inevitable.

We can fix this. But it starts with courage, it starts with truth and the group that has been in power for so long in California cannot admit that their policies have not worked and will never work. Instead, they are doubling down on their mistakes. It’s time to vote them out.

Let’s give our kids a future worth fighting for.

Carol Pefley
Candidate for Ca State Assembly District 28