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Life & Times Transcript

05/31/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Public school is free to all students, so why not preschool?

Ginny Zywot>> This opportunity is important to four year old children who ordinarily would not be exposed to an environment where there is lots of exploring going on.

Lance Izumi>> To say that preschool is going to be the magic bullet, I think it's simply selling people a lot of old-time medicine.

Val Zavala>> And then, a chance to see life from a new perspective. A video artist puts cameras on critters.

These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> 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.

With additional support for Life and Times from The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.

Val Zavala>> Free preschool for every four year old in California? Sounds like a great idea, but now the hard part. Who's going to pay for it? Well, that's where you, the voter, comes in. Proposition 82 proposes that a tax be placed on affluent families to pay for preschool. Is that a good idea? To help you decide, Toni Guinyard took a look at both sides of the question.

Toni Guinyard> Preschool. They're cute, curious and eager to learn as they are to play. They're also too young to understand or even care that their education is at the center of a debate.

>> "One plus four equals five."

Toni Guinyard>> California voters must decide the value of a preschool education. At question is Proposition 82, the Preschool for All Act. If passed, the ballot initiative would establish a voluntary half-day public preschool program for every four year old in the state free. Funding would come from a 1.7 percent income tax on individuals making four hundred thousand dollars, eight hundred thousand for couples.

Ginny Zywot>> This opportunity is important to four year old children who ordinarily would not be exposed to an environment where there is lots of exploring going on.

Toni Guinyard>> Ginny Zywot operates Smart Start family child care in Redondo Beach with her husband, Don.

Don Zywot>> "I want you to draw four or five lines. Make them nice and straight." We do the things that you do in a family. We love them, feed them, educate them, and hug them.

Toni Guinyard>> The couple already participates in LAUP, Los Angeles County's universal preschool program. Now they support Proposition 82.

Ginny Zywot>> LAUP is the pioneer for Proposition 82 and what is wonderful about LAUP is that it's given the county a chance to look at how a four year old program can work within the county and it really can.

Karen Hill-Scott>> Four years old is what I call a sticky age, or the tipping point, of learning and school performance. It's a time when the things that you do during that year prior to kindergarten sticks.

Toni Guinyard>> Child development consultant and Proposition 82 supporter, Dr. Karen Hill-Scott.

Karen Hill-Scott>> By making preschool universal, no matter where a child is, no matter what income they have, they have the constitutional right to have access to a preschool education and we know it will happen when it's universal.

Toni Guinyard>> But critics of Proposition 82 argue the state shouldn't fund preschool for parents who can afford it. They say that universal preschool is being pushed because --

Lance Izumi>> If you only focus this initiative on a small group of low-income and minority children, you won't get the wide political support for this.

Toni Guinyard>> And so it is that four year olds have captured the attention of early childhood educators, elected officials, academics and researchers, some of whom cite conflicting research about the benefits of Proposition 82 and preschool.

Lance Izumi>> There is no evidence to show that they're going to have better student success or better life experiences by simply going to preschool.

Toni Guinyard>> Lance Izumi is Director of Education Studies for the Sacramento-based Pacific Research Institute.

Lance Izumi>> To say that preschool is going to be the magic bullet, I think it's simply selling people a lot of old-time medicine.

Toni Guinyard>> Time and time again, you hear the same thing, that everyone has the best interest of the children in mind. But this time, you're also hearing something else. It comes down to how you define a quality preschool education.

Karen Hill-Scott>> I tell parents, to make it simple, that quality is measured in three dimensions: people, program and place.

Toni Guinyard>> Preschool for all teachers will be required to have a four-year college degree and eventually an additional early learning teaching credential. Right now, state preschool teachers only need to have just over a year of college and twenty-four units in early childhood education. Teacher aides in the program would have to complete forty-eight units of college, including twenty-four units of early childhood education.

Mia Levi>> It's a crime. It is a crime. I've got teachers who've worked for us for twenty years, twenty years. They are second to none and I'm not about to look at those teachers and say "So long" because you didn't get a Bachelor's degree or an extra teaching credential.

Toni Guinyard>> Mia Levi operates six southern California preschools. She also serves as a spokesperson for the No on Proposition 82 campaign.

Mia Levi>> I think it is a badly designed bill. I think the intention was probably admirable, but the devil is in the details.

Toni Guinyard>> There are a lot of details. There is a shortage of space in licensed preschools to meet the demand.

Karen Hill-Scott>> There are no preschools with spaces for those children to go to.

Toni Guinyard>> Proposition 82 would allow parents to choose where their child is enrolled.

Karen Hill-Scott>> If someone lives in Bell and they want to go to preschool somewhere near downtown because that's where they go to work, if there's a preschool downtown, they can go there.

Toni Guinyard>> And even from its different types of established child care programs to participate as long as they abide by the regulations and state standards administered by the State Superintendent of Education.

Karen Hill-Scott>> They have to deal with fiscal integrity. They are going to be learning the learning standards, but my guess is that they will be relatively broad because we want every local community to develop the standards for their community.

Lance Izumi>> We don't know what those state standards for preschool are going to be.

Toni Guinyard>> Critics like Izumi say that Proposition 82 will lead to the closure of existing preschool programs.

Lance Izumi>> You can decide that you're not going to take the money and, you know, avoid all those regulations, but you're going to be put at a competitive disadvantage with regard to those other schools that are going to get the money and being able to offer free preschool, whereas if you avoid Proposition 82, you're going to have to charge tuition and may be put out of business.

Eyde McAllister>> To have a preschool that's three hours long, that the curriculum will be mandated, it's going to change a lot. A three-hour program is not going to accommodate the working parents that we have at this school.

Toni Guinyard>> There is also a debate over the potential number of children who will be served. It's estimated that as many as sixty-six percent of four year olds in the state are already in some type of child care center, preschool or nursery school. Proposition 82 hopes to reach seventy to eighty percent.

Mia Levi>> So they want to completely destroy a whole system that is working beautifully, to create a whole new bureaucracy to the tune of two and a half billion dollars a year, so that they can increase preschool enrollment by only four percent.

Toni Guinyard>> It's an argument Dr. Hill-Scott has heard before.

Karen Hill-Scott>> The point is that sixty-six percent of the kids who are of preschool age are in a group program of some type. We call it preschool. It's fine to call it preschool, but it is not at the same quality standards that we are talking about based on staff qualifications.

Lance Izumi>> You know, if you look at trying to get bang for your buck, unfortunately, this initiative promises a lot, but I don't believe there's evidence that shows that it would deliver.

Toni Guinyard>> The arguments for and against the Preschool for All Act will undoubtedly be debated from now until election day when voters decide if Proposition 82 offers the best bet for providing a quality education for California's youngest students.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> And Proposition 82 would also provide for loans and scholarships for preschool teachers.

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

Val Zavala>> Would you believe that three-quarters of all the computers in peoples' homes are just sitting there unused, gathering dust in attics, closes and garages? And part of the problem is what to do with them. You can't throw them away because they've got all sorts of toxins inside. Well, we met a different kind of computer geek who's got the answer.

This is SoCal Computer Recyclers in Harbor City. It was started six years ago and, in terms of square footage, it's grown twelve-fold since then. Randy Lewis is the founder and owner and he's excited about a new law that also benefits consumers. It makes the recycling of computer monitors free and easy.

Randy Lewis>> You can drop off your stuff for free at a place like my warehouse or at any of these mobile recycling events or from a lot of other places. However, it's not really, truly free. When you buy a new television or you buy a new monitor, you have to pay something up front to cover that cost.

Val Zavala>> I think it's between six and ten dollars.

Randy Lewis>> Between six and ten dollars, depending on the size. Once that happens, that money, that fee, goes into a fund and then the state administers the fund and pays recyclers and collectors like myself to safely and properly recycle it.

Val Zavala>> You used to have to pay ten dollars to have a computer monitor or anything with a video screen recycled. But as of January 1, 2005, it's free. No fee required.

Randy Lewis>> So this new law enables us to not have to charge the clients, which again is a good thing for us. So every step of the way, I think what the state has done and the decisions they've made have been very good not just for my industry, but for all the consumers in California.

Val Zavala>> On the average, three thousand pounds of electronics come through these doors every day. It may sound like a lot, but consider this: America produces a hundred fifty million pounds of electronic waste every year. How much is that?

Randy Lewis>> If you were to pile all that up and make a giant pyramid out of it, not only would you be able to see it from space, but it would be bigger than the entire city of Las Vegas.

Val Zavala>> And who does all the dismantling? Some very special folks.

Randy Lewis>> We're very fortunate that we've got the Vocational Rehabilitation Center right down the street from us, so we're able to offer job training to these vocational rehabilitation people and they do great work for us.

Val Zavala>> I hear you're one of the fastest.

Basil Hayden>> Yes, ma'am, because Mike and Chad trained me to become a professional employee here. I caught on after six days and then I got good in three months, six months, and then I got bonuses here and gifts from the bosses for being a good and faithful employee and I really enjoy working here. I keep things clean, being organized for Randy and the staff and I just love it.

Randy Lewis>> We have things separated out by the power supplies, different cables, plastics and metal, and each of those components gets recycled separately because there are chemicals in there that definitely don't belong in the landfill.

Val Zavala>> Heavy metals are bad news for our landfills and it's estimated that electronic waste is responsible for seventy percent of all the heavy metals found in our dump sites.

Randy Lewis>> Monitors have between five and seven pounds of lead per unit and, if you throw that in the trash, it could leak into the groundwater and contaminate the soil. We don't need that stuff going in there.

Val Zavala>> SoCal Recyclers doesn't just take in computer monitors. It takes in almost every electronic gadget you could think of at no charge. What is all this?

Randy Lewis>> Our rule is that we'll take anything with a circuit board and a plug, so at every event, we count on the fact that we're going to get some sort of oscilloscope or test equipment. We also are positive that, at any one time, we're going to get a vacuum cleaner, we're going to get a coffee machine, we're going to get a copy machine. We get lots of fax machines and it's things that we've grown to expect. All of this stuff can be recycled. None of it belongs in the landfill, so we'll take anything and this is proof.

A lot of this stuff can be used by collectors. A lot of collectors come by. They'll see this stuff. They can't live without it. Stuff is really cheap because it doesn't really cost us anything to attain it. People are getting rid of it and our main mantra is "Keep it in use". It's the same amount of work to keep it in use as opposed to breaking it down, so if we can keep it in use, we know it's not going to go in the landfill.

Val Zavala>> We have large screen televisions, tons of VCRs, computers. Where did all this stuff come from?

Randy Lewis>> All this stuff came from Hollywood Park. This represents two pickups over one day.

Val Zavala>> Does this stuff work?

Randy Lewis>> Most of the time, we get things for one of two reasons. Either it's too old or because it's broken. So if it looks really, really nice, we already know that it's probably broken. If it doesn't look so good, then it's worth testing and we try to keep it in use and we'll clean it up.

Val Zavala>> Now this will look familiar. It's a cell phone mass grave. Look at this. Look at that old one. Do you get a lot of these?

Randy Lewis>> We do get a lot of these. Especially at events, people always throw in, along with everything else, at the last minute they'll remember that old cell phone in the closet and throw these along.

Val Zavala>> Now, are cell phones in general very recyclable or not?

Randy Lewis>> Some parts of them are. For example, the circuit board inside a cell phone is very recyclable. The batteries inside out? Not very recyclable, something you definitely don't want to have in a landfill. Nickel metal hydrate, lithium ion, you really don�t want to have those going into a landfill where they can contaminate everything. So it's better to bring them to us and let us safely recycle the batteries at the same time.

Val Zavala>> How about plastics?

Randy Lewis>> Plastics are actually a problem within the industry. They're getting better these days, but originally a computer could have up to four different kinds of plastic. Recently there's been a trend from manufacturers to try to make things easier. They want to use one type of plastic, maybe two. They want to make sure the plastic they have is recyclable and easy to take apart.

Val Zavala>> Check this out. DVD player, probably broken.

Randy Lewis>> If not, you can break it if it'll make you feel better (laughter).

Val Zavala>> E-therapy.

Randy Lewis>> That's one of the best things about this job. On a really bad day, I can take a crow bar out here and go nuts. What am I going to do? Break it? It can't get any more broken.

Val Zavala>> About half their revenues come from refurbishing computers and reselling them pretty cheap, about two hundred to fifty dollars apiece, but they also give plenty of computers away.

Randy Lewis>> We get letters all the time from people saying they need a computer for their school or for their church. We're very happy to be able to help out.

Val Zavala>> Now, another big concern is that companies who have all sorts of sensitive data on their computers may be reluctant to drop them off because they don't know what's going to happen to those hard drives.

Randy Lewis>> And that's one of the cornerstones that made me find this company was start by removing all the data. We do asset management, we do hard drive declassification, we run a special program that writes seven layers of ones and zeroes over the drive, starting at the first sector, ending at the last, burying it over seven layers of data, then we erase it all.

Val Zavala>> Of the millions of personal computers that become obsolete each year, only about eleven percent are recycled. Randy Lewis is determined to get that number up and, as their slogan says, they're "saving the world one computer at a time." Now this Saturday, the city of Monterey Park is having a big computer and electronics waste roundup. For more information, you can go to their website at ci.monterey-park.ca.us.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val Zavala>> Have you ever thought about trying life out as something other than a human? Like, say, an armadillo or a duck or even a wolf? Well, the closest we'll probably ever come to cross-species experience is the work of video artist, Sam Easterson. Take a look.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> This is what life looks like from a goat's perspective. It's clearly all about the food.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> And this is a chick's point of view. It's all about quick moves.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> A tortoise, on the other hand --

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> This is the work of video artist, Sam Easterson, who has spent the last eight years putting video cameras on mammals, insects, birds and even a tumbleweed. It started when he was a landscape architect student in New York. He was fascinated with the idea of using sheep to cut lawns. He had fooled around with video cameras, so he thought why not put a camera and a recorder in a knapsack and strap it onto a sheep?

Sam Easterson>> It was a lot of fun. It was a successful project and I just decided to keep going, yeah. I sort of had this idea to create this really large project over the course of many, many years, creating this library, if you will, of all these animal cams.

That first one was pretty low-tech and really the next sort of phase in that evolution was an armadillo that I did, I don't know, about a year later. This was a small camera that was just mounted on the back of this armadillo right behind the ears.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Now how do you capture an armadillo long enough to attach a camera to it?

Sam Easterson>> You know, my job is really quite easy. I'm sort of the coordinator for all this. I have someone, a handler or a veterinarian, who does this for me.

Val Zavala>> Oh, okay.

Sam Easterson>> So I'm just organizing all this work. This is a pig here sort of wallowing in the mud.

Val Zavala>> Oh, gee.

[Film Clip]

Sam Easterson>> Part of the reason I like this work is, you know, you get to sort of elevate these animals which you might not think of a lot of the time as, you know, television-worthy to that level.

Val Zavala>> He's using his snout like a shovel.

Sam Easterson>> Yeah, I know. I love how he goes underwater too, sort of bubbling his way through the mud.

Val Zavala>> Easterson doesn't limit himself to mammals. He's also hitched rides with insects like this housefly who found it a little hard to fly with a tiny camera on his wing. This tarantula did better.

[Film Clip]

Sam Easterson>> For me, on this particular day when I was kneeling down in the desert, I just noticed how beautiful those hairs were standing up on the tarantula's legs and I couldn't ignore those. So I had to bring those into focus and sort of bring that animal alive.

Val Zavala>> What were some of the hardest ones?

Sam Easterson>> I think the wolf was pretty hard.

Val Zavala>> The wolf. Okay, let's take a look at the wolf.

[Film Clip]

Sam Easterson>> This is a juvenile Timber Wolf that is chasing after a squirrel that's burrowed itself into a hole. There's the hole right there. He's sniffing his way. He's got a bead on that squirrel housed in there.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Oh, my gosh.

Sam Easterson>> I love how he tries to dig that squirrel out of there.

Val Zavala>> I'm sure that squirrel is so far down there.

Sam Easterson>> We're walking along and the wolf came across, by chance, a garter snake. You can sort of see the wolf here. You see its shadow and then, all of a sudden, there's just a flurry of activity and there appears the garter snake.

Val Zavala>> Whoa, that was really fast. Let's see that again.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Easterson actually has clients, mostly museums, who want an interesting element for an exhibit. This wolf video was to accompany an exhibit on dogs. Now I'm told that, on the "Animal Planet", they do this kind of thing. They put cameras on animals.

Sam Easterson>> There are definitely moves in the last few years. The BBC, National Geographic. They were sort of born from a scientific agenda. This is very much born from an arts agenda, so it's sort of very qualitative data.

Val Zavala>> Now you've put them on birds?

Sam Easterson>> Yeah, I have. Oh, this is a clip from a pheasant that's taking off. This is pretty rough to watch, but there's a lot of drama in a bird taking off and not posed for this sort of rough look oftentimes.

[Film Clip]

Sam Easterson>> This is a hawk -- or a falcon, excuse me.

Val Zavala>> A falcon. Wow.

Sam Easterson>> The camera is attached to the falcon's leg. Then throughout the landscape, we implanted receivers. This is its wing here and leg. You can see the landscape there. It's sort of flapping to sort of even itself out, but it's coming in for a landing right now and this, below here, is the desert landscape. You can see it there sort of adjusting its flight path a little bit. These are shrubs down below. You can sort of see its wing here and there and it plops down for a landing.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> For a smoother ride, he turns to ducks. And then an alligator.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Have you ever lost a camera in water? You've got pigs going through mud and the alligators and ducks.

Sam Easterson>> I think I've lost one, yeah, in the water. During the alligator shoot, I know I lost one for sure.

Val Zavala>> Easterson's equipment can fit into a kit the size of a large shoebox.

Sam Easterson>> This is a lens here. It weighs about an ounce. This is the antenna that transmits the signal and this is the battery pack that provides the power for both the lens and the antenna.

Val Zavala>> And do animals ever notice the camera?

Sam Easterson>> This is one of my favorites. This is one of those moments again. This is a cow that's wearing a camera. Some of the other cows noticed the camera on the cow's head and they came up and tried to figure out what's going on. They tried to give the camera a lick (laughter).

This is a quick shot of a buffalo. He's at the head of a stampede that he's sort of leading, sort of thundering.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> How did you know to pick the lead buffalo?

Sam Easterson>> I had some help there.

[Film Clip]

Sam Easterson>> Then this is sort of out a little bit later in the prairie, butting heads with another buffalo that wants to be in charge. You see the male dominating this other male here.

Val Zavala>> He's accumulated a library of about fifty different animals and insects and one tumbleweed. So how far does he want to take it?

Sam Easterson>> I don't know. I didn't think I'd really be doing this eight years later and, having captured all this, I'm not quite sure where it's going. I mean, every year there seems to be something, you know. I guess I wouldn't rule anything out.

Val Zavala>> Easterson's bird videos are part of an exhibit of fifteen Los Angeles artists at the Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park. For more information, give them a call. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> 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.

With additional support for Life and Times by The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.

Sponsored in part by:


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