04/05/05

LC050405

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

The push is on to offer preschool for every child in California, but do kids really need another year in school?

Sheriff Lee Baca>> If we don't help our children get a foothold on the educational journey that they're going to take for twelve years, I'm going to see them in my jail.

Val>> And then, same place, different time. Photographs span the gulf between our rural past and our sprawling present.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Six years ago, voters in California said yes to a tax on cigarettes and, since then, millions of dollars have accumulated, most of them earmarked for early childhood development programs. Well, now there's an effort to start universal preschool for every child in Los Angeles County. It's a huge undertaking, but as Toni Guinyard tells us, supporters say it's an investment that will pay off.

Toni Guinyard>> Some of California's smallest residents are suddenly getting a lot of attention from some very big and influential people, all of whom say they want to do what's best for the children. In this case, children too young to go to kindergarten, but old enough to learn.

Brigette Morales>> With less than a year, she's learned shapes. She can read and write her name. She recognizes other children's names.

Toni Guinyard>> Voluntary universal preschool for every four year old regardless of their family's socio-economic status is being touted as a way to give youngsters a jumpstart on their education. Parents Ann Ross-Clarke and Fred Clarke say it's long overdue.

Fred Clarke>> I don't see how we can fix the education system if we're going to start when kids are five.

Toni Guinyard>> The couple is already searching for the perfect preschool for their two and a half year old daughter, Isabella. They want her to socialize with other children. They want her to learn. And they want other youngsters to have the same opportunity.

Ann Ross-Clarke>> I mean, I don't expect her to come out reading a book or being Einstein, but I think the general concept that lead to math and lead to reading and language. I think that's important and I think that is taught in preschool and should be taught in preschool and I think every kid should have that.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> The Clarkes, like so many other parents, are faced with two huge obstacles to getting their child enrolled in preschool.

Fred Clarke>> I've even heard of wait lists where they've just said don't even bother. There's no way you're going to get in. There are too many people on the wait list.

Toni Guinyard>> And then, there's the cost.

Ann Ross-Clarke>> We looked at one lovely school. It looked great, but it was about twelve thousand dollars a year.

Toni Guinyard>> Way out of your price range.

Ann Ross-Clarke>> Yes, yes.

Fred Clarke>> We're certainly better off than most people. You know, we're not rich, we're not poor, but we are lucky in that we have the choice and that we can go out and potentially pay for a preschool. I know that's not the case for many, many people.

Sheriff Lee Baca>> What's interesting about the concept of preschool and the fact that people are waiting to get into preschool and it doesn't matter if it's from the low-income neighborhoods or the people who are affluent, the fact is that we don't have enough preschools for the demand.

Toni Guinyard>> If it seems odd to hear a law enforcement official talking about the importance of access to preschool, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says it shouldn't.

Sheriff Lee Baca>> If we don't help our children get a foothold on the educational journey that they're going to take for twelve years, I'm going to see them in my jail.

Toni Guinyard>> Sheriff Baca is part of an anti-crime law enforcement organization called Fight Crime-Invest in Kids. The group commissioned a study to determine how to keep children from turning to crime and landing in jail. It concluded access to quality preschool is vital and that current state and federally funded preschool programs only reach forty-three percent of preschool aged kids.

Sheriff Lee Baca>> This is a critical thing now that we can't go to the past for all our answers.

Toni Guinyard>> Where are we going to find the money to do this?

Sheriff Lee Baca>> We're going to ask the taxpayers.

Ron Prentice>> I would certainly prefer, as a taxpayer and as a parent, that my monies would go towards fixing what is versus creating something else.

Toni Guinyard>> Ron Prentice is Executive Director of the Riverside-based California Family Council, an organization formed to promote Judeo-Christian principles statewide.

Ron Prentice>> When we look at universal preschool and the costs involved for this state, I think that there are better ways to go about working with the young children.

Toni Guinyard>> At a time when support for universal preschool is getting so much attention --

Rob Reiner>> "Nothing can stop this. Nothing can stop this."

Toni Guinyard>> The California Family Council's position provides what is often the lone dissenting view.

Ron Prentice>> Evidence suggests that the richest environment for a three and four year old is not school, not preschool, not by any means a desk situation or an academic situation, but the environment of home. We're frustrated because opponents to our perspective will throw out faulty research often and there's no way to immediately respond.

Toni Guinyard>> Research widely accepted by educators contradicts Prentice's position.

Rob Reiner>> "All the longitudinal studies show you make this investment, you not only make sure that kids do well in school, they don't drop out, they go on to college, but they become productive members of society as was pointed out. Crime goes down."

Toni Guinyard>> Rob Reiner chairs First 5 California, the state commission established by Proposition 10. The 1998 ballot measure placed a tax on cigarettes to fund childhood health and education programs. On this rainy spring day, the commission celebrated the launch of Los Angeles Universal Preschool.

>> "We're so proud and pleased to be a part of this. . ."

Toni Guinyard>> LAUP, as it's called, is a nonprofit organization funded by First 5 California. LAUP will receive six hundred million dollars over five years. It's goal is making quality preschool available to every four year old in Los Angeles County within ten years.

Graciela Italiano-Thomas>> Access to preschool is one of the most pressing needs that many children in Los Angeles County have.

Toni Guinyard>> As CEO of Los Angeles Universal Preschool, Graciela Italiano-Thomas is determined, but facing an uphill battle. LAUP identified sixty neighborhoods in Los Angeles County as hot zones, communities where there are one thousand more four year olds than there are available seats for them in a quality preschool program.

Alejandra Abundis>> The waiting list was so long that sometimes the waiting list would go on for years that when you needed it, you know, when they would call you like, oh, there's space available for your child, it was already too late because your child's all ready to go to kindergarten.

Toni Guinyard>> Three year old Jason is Alejandra's son. He is now enrolled in the YWCA's Union Pacific Children's Center, one of the first of one hundred facilities to receive funding from Los Angeles Universal Preschool. It is a milestone, but the need for additional facilities means additional funding.

>> "The six hundred million dollars is not going to cover to build new facilities. We need to go out there and find the dollars in order to get these facilities online. We need to go out there and train the teachers, the educators, that are going to educate our children."

Sheriff Lee Baca>> I think that the paranoia about not increasing the taxes has to be taken head on and we have to help our public understand that you're going to pay a little now to save a lot later or, if you pay nothing now, you will pay later nonetheless.

[Film Clip]

Sheriff Lee Baca>> Give the voter a chance to say I like that and I'll pay for it.

Toni Guinyard>> While there are different schools of thought on how best to fund early childhood education programs, the concept of providing access to quality preschool is gaining momentum along with some criticism.

Ron Prentice>> I wouldn't deny that preschool has its benefits. The question here is whether an academic setting is really best and there's a difference.

Toni Guinyard>> There will be differences of opinion about what's best for the children and, while the talking continues, the effort will continue to address the inadequate supply of preschools to meet the demand. I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times".

Val>> Are television cop shows making it harder to convict criminals? That's the question that arose after actor Robert Blake was acquitted on murder charges. The Los Angeles County District Attorney was critical of the verdict saying the jury ignored compelling evidence. Kevin Smith talked with D.A. Steve Cooley about how cop shows have made juries less likely to convict, especially in high-profile cases.

Kevin Smith>> In light of the recent Robert Blake acquittal, you made some comments about the effect on juries of TV programs like CSI. You call it the CSI Effect. What did you mean by that?

Steve Cooley>> Well, I essentially agreed with the Los Angeles Times article that shortly after that verdict pointed out that this is sort of an underlying concern of my prosecutors across the nation is that the public is becoming very aware of the great potential of various scientific advances, DNA, fingerprint technology, ballistics and through programs on the Discovery channel and cable TV and regular TV. There's sort of a high expectation on the part of jurors that somehow or another in each and every case this kind of evidence, this forensic evidence, is going to save the day, solve the case, make it absolutely clear.

The fact of the matter is, in the vast mass majority of criminal prosecutions, this kind of evidence may not be available. It may not be available because none of it exists. It may not be available because there's a failure to collect it, but there's this expectation anyway. We public prosecutors are going to have to deal with jurors' legitimate expectations that they be given all available evidence to do their duty and the fact that sometimes it's just not there.

Kevin Smith>> Does that make it more difficult to convict than in a circumstantial case? Is that the point?

Steve Cooley>> Well, a circumstantial case or even a direct evidence case where jurors anticipate forensic evidence and its analysis is going to conclusively resolve the issue. If it's not there, in any case, the jurors may have a harder time coming to the verdict because of their expectations which may not be realistic all the time.

Kevin Smith>> Does the fact that this was a celebrity case play into this? Are you also noticing this CSI Effect in more run of the mill criminal cases?

Steve Cooley>> Yes. The CSI Effect probably is playing out across the nation in cases where jurors may have some expectation that there will be a forensic analysis to clearly pinpoint what the crime was or who did it. So it's a national phenomenon and one that we as prosecutors are going to have to address when we voir dire the jurors prior to them hearing testimony and in arguments before the jurors.

We are in this great new world where forensic science is rapidly expanding and we're trying to take advantage of it, but by the same token, it has its limitations and sometimes the evidence that they anticipate just isn't there, so we're going to have to re-down to the normal way jurors resolve issues and that is to look at the witnesses, determine their credibility, figure out the logic or the presentation of the case. I think in the Blake case, there was a very logical compelling circumstantial evidence case.

Kevin Smith>> How do you get jurors to disregard that? You can't sit there and give them your own instructions.

Steve Cooley>> You can't get them to disregard their knowledge or views based upon their experiences. We expect jurors to bring their knowledge and their brain power and their common sense -- hopefully a lot of common sense -- to their duty as jurors. We're not asking them to disregard the CSI Effect. We try and make sure they don't put too much emphasis on it to the detriment of finding guilt when the evidence otherwise supports guilt.

Kevin Smith>> Quite apart from any CSI Effect or effect of television on the jury, isn't it a fact that, in this town, it's difficult to convict celebrity defendants without a real ironclad case?

Steve Cooley>> If you look at the history of prosecutions by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office going all the way back to Fatty Arbuckle to present, there is something unique when the defendant happens to be a celebrity. That's something that we have to really analyze. Maybe we have to rely upon people who are able to analyze potential jurors better than we can. Sometimes our deputy D.A.s are very good at selecting juries. They've a very high conviction rate, but in this instance, there may be other factors at play in the jurors' heads that we are clueless about and we can't figure out.

That may ultimately play out in terms of verdicts that defy the evidence or that we substantially disagree with or a verdict that may have been different if the defendant facing the same evidence was not a celebrity. So we may have to go to jury consultants. We may have to do a better job in terms of exploring issues or agendas that some jurors may have.

Kevin Smith>> You have another celebrity case coming out, a murder case involving Phil Specter, a music industry legend. Not perhaps as much of a household word as Robert Blake or an O.J. Simpson. Do you have any different strategies for that case going forward?

Steve Cooley>> Well, we are going to do a postmortem on the Blake matter. Hopefully, that will give us some insight into maybe some strategies for Mr. Specter. But generally, our strategy is to adduce and present to the jury all available evidence that points to guilt. We're going to do that in this case. The grand jury has indicted Mr. Specter based upon our presentation. There are some matters out there that will be litigated which are critical, we think, to the jury fully understanding the circumstances of that case and this will be adduced in the court of law.

Kevin Smith>> Steve Cooley, thanks for being with us. We enjoyed it. Hope to see you on Life and Times again soon.

Steve Cooley>> My pleasure.

Patt Morrison>> Spring has stormed into California and here the flowers grow wholesale by acres, from range to mountain range, from sky to sky, rippling in the breeze like technicolor wheat, moving as if there were wind in the ground. Hard to believe that all this can flourish in the same cooked hardpan earth of summer and drought, but the wrathful rains of El Nino have left behind a benediction, a landscape stippled with a paint-box palette of flowers.

[Film Clip]

Patt Morrison>> Their abundance is transitory for they're gone in weeks, but for that span, they bloom with vigor, California Poppies and the rest. They grow in profusion across preserves around Los Angeles. They sprout up in the exhaust fumes and concrete of freeway mediums. They spring horizontally out of the scant earth of rocky hillsides. For all their frail stems and translucent petals, as hardy as the men and women who became Californians long before air conditioning and internal combustion engines.

The California Poppy was our unofficial flower even before there was a state of California. The Forty-niners pressed them into their letters home from the Gold Rush. There were more flowers then as there was more of everything except people. Nowadays, you can be fined a thousand dollars and sent to jail for six months for picking just one.

[Film Clip]

Patt Morrison>> The yellow-orange of the Poppies burns like flame across the hills and then, like a wave from the Pacific, comes a cool blue violent expanse of Lupin, the purple haze alternately vivid and shadowed as the breeze bends the wands in the sunlight. The connoisseurs know the brilliant seasons and the sparse ones the way wine lovers know vintages, but to see it even once, the hillsides solid with color for miles out is beyond forgetting. Had the painter, Monet, in his early years come to California in the spring, he never would have needed to bother planting that garden in Giverny.

[Film Clip]

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Val>> They say the only constant is change and that's certainly true of life in Southern California where the present often disappears before we've had a good chance to take a look at it. Well, now a photo exhibit at the Pasadena Museum of California Art lets us take a good long look. They've put the past right next to the present in an exhibit called "Cultivating Pasadena".

The Pasadena Museum of California Art is a young museum, only two years old. Auto Club historian, Matt Roth, gave me a tour of the exhibit which is a joint project of the Automobile Club of Southern California and the Labyrinth Project at USC's Annenberg Center for Communication. Okay, Matt, what are we seeing here? This is one of the earliest pictures.

Matt Roth>> Yes. The before picture is the Ezra and Jean Carr House. They were a well-to-do family in the Victorian period. Mrs. Carr was one of the pioneer ornamental gardeners of the region. She did a lot of experiments with native plants. It eventually became the site of what is now the Norton Simon Museum and that's the after picture, the garden of the Norton Simon Museum.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Now this is a magnificent building. It's just beautiful. What was it?

Matt Roth>> The Universalist Church. It's kind of a high Victorian style. It was at the corner of Chestnut and Raymond Streets. It's now a playground, a city playground, and I'm sure that's a great use because kids need a place to play.

Val>> But some people would say what a loss. What happened?

Matt Roth>> Well, it is a loss architecturally. The church moved. They went to a different location.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Now this is an example of landscaping. Pasadena went through an incredible phase where all sorts of landscaping went in.

Matt Roth>> Well, particularly along Millionaire's Row, as it was called, along Orange Grove Boulevard. This actually shows the garden behind the Augustus Busch Mansion. It was a vast garden. It went all the way down to the arroyo. Acres and acres and acres --

Val>> -- Busch, as in the brewing company.

Matt Roth>> Yes. Augustus Busch from Anheuser Busch. The area was later subdivided. It's now a public street with private residences and, obviously, it's overgrown quite a bit. We don't know if the terracing is in there yet because we didn't, you know, go bushwhacking, but we did find the site, thanks to a local resident named Gary Coles who knows everything about Busch Gardens.

Val>> Wesley Jessup is the Executive Director of the Pasadena Museum of California Art.

Wesley Jessup>> I think people, when they see this exhibition, are going to get an incredibly rich sense of the history of this city, of Pasadena, which is one of the most established historical cities in Southern California, and I think that they'll take away with them a sense of what really does happen over time, what happens to the land. You know, these photographs are two photographs on a very long continuum. I mean, we can have the show in another one hundred years and it would tell a different story. I think it's a fabulous, fabulous experience to see these things.

Val>> Now this is one of the most fascinating. Some people are still around who remember Mt. Lowe.

Matt Roth>> Well, sure. It's part of the National Forest now. It's protected land. This particular location is called Granite Gate. Colonel Lowe, an entrepreneur who wanted to build a resort on top of the mountain, put a trolley line up there in the late nineteenth century actually. Pacific Electric eventually acquired it and that's the period of this picture. Morgan Yates, who works with me at the Auto Club archives, contacted a volunteer who works with the fire service. He showed him the picture and he said, "Oh, yeah. I know just where that is."

He took Morgan and Rosemary Comella, the photographer, up there. You know, it's protected land. You have to go through a locked gate and then they had to drive for some time up the mountain road. The photographer for all of these shots is Rosemary Comella from the Annenberg Center, the Labyrinth Project at USC. She's also a website designer who did the DVD installation of this exhibit and, yes, she took all of these pictures including climbing up mountains.

Wesley Jessup>> One of the things that happens in Southern California, unfortunately, is that we do lose that sense of history and this exhibition really captures it and cultivates that idea.

Val>> Especially for people who haven't been here very long because we also have a high turnover in residence.

Wesley Jessup>> That's right, that's right. People move through quickly, so this is a great show for people who are from Pasadena, but also from others outside of Pasadena to come and really become familiar with this city.

Val>> Now this is a street in Pasadena everybody knows. Colorado Boulevard, the route of the Rose Parade, and also one time, what is that? A train going through?

Matt Roth>> Right. The historical photograph was taken in 1928 by the Auto Club engineer, Ernest East, who was documenting dangerous traffic conditions and, where mainline railroads and automobiles have to share the same space, it's pretty dangerous. Of course, the rail right-of-way is still there. It's now the Gold Line light rail transit system. It's just that it's been put under the street.

Val>> Under there is the Gold Line?

Matt Roth>> Yes.

Val>> It's the same right-of-way as the railroad track used to be?

Matt Roth>> Yes.

Val>> That's amazing.

Matt Roth>> This was a tough picture to take. Rosemary Comella, the photographer, really wanted to get the right light on it and we had to get a film permit from the city of Pasadena.

Val>> Close the street down?

Matt Roth>> Well, sort of. We had to close down the turn lane and have the traffic diverted around us. I mean, it was a big deal.

Val>> It looks so simple too (laughter).

Matt Roth>> We're happy the results are there.

Val>> That's great. Let's see what else.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Now here is something I had no idea ever existed. A dam? The Devils Gate Dam?

Matt Roth>> The Devils Gate Dam. It's at the top of the arroyo. It was built in the early 1920's as a flood control dam to keep the runoff from the San Gabriels from flooding the arroyo. As you can see, it's now filled up with debris; that is, you know, rock and gravel and so forth that has flowed down off the mountains, although people who know this kind of thing, geologists, tell me that there is just as much water in there now. It's just that it has saturated the solid material. The dam is still there. It's still working.

Val>> Okay, but the water is not there much.

Matt Roth>> Well, it's just there saturating some solid material.

Val>> That's a dramatic change.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Now this one shows dramatic change.

Matt Roth>> Another one of Pasadena's icons. Well, it's recognizable in the contemporary view as Caltech, California Institute of Technology.

Val>> Look at this.

Matt Roth>> Right. This is when it was Throop Institute in 1912.

Val>> You would have no idea that's Caltech today.

Matt Roth>> Well, right. It's been completely built over through some amazing leadership by people like George Ellory Hale established Caltech as arguably the leading scientific research institution in the world.

Val>> Well, Matt Roth, thank you so much for this little tour of Pasadena's past and present.

Matt Roth>> It's a pleasure.

Val>> The Auto Club has another similar exhibit in the works. The next city they're going to is Riverside. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

A celebrated birth. Why this little one was worth the trouble her parents endured.

>> There's still kind of a feeling about zoos being, you know, just for showing animals. There's so much more to modern zoos, so when we can show successes like this where so many things had to come together for success for this species and for this animal, we like to talk about that.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.