nbc bay area political analyst larry gerston is here to explain this.et's talk about what's going on here. the bills sound very similar. >> at first blush they do. talk about proposition 30, proposition 38, both of which focus on public education in california. to understand this, let's do a little history. we'll go back in time here. the legislature and the governor last june passed a budget that was unbalanced by $8 billion. $8 billion. why? because they didn't have the money. they couldn't get any tax increase support from republicans. so governor jerry brown and his allies went ahead and qualified a ballot initiative that would raise income taxes for seven years on the wealthiest, raise the sales tax by a quarter cent for several years and that's the idea behind proposition 30. all of that money, virtually all of it, would go toward public education. therefore, balancing the state budget in the process. that's the idea. now some might ask why public education? what's going on here? the reason is because they cut another $8 billion last june from all

. >> larry gerston, we appreciate your time. >> still to come, a proud legacy restored in the south baywe've got the band back together. it's part of bay area proud. this is an rc robotic claw. my high school science teacher made me what i am today. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool. ♪ >> sunnyvale is 100 years old but not everything in the city has lasted all 100 years. sunnyvale's high school closed its doors back in 1981 but turns out the school story doesn't end there. garvin thomas shows us one group keeping the memories and the music alive. >> kevin turner is keeping the beat and breaking a sweat. ♪ he has to the he and the band mates are going to reach the high bar they set for themselves. their big performance is a couple of days away. and a lot of work lies ahead if thi

larry gerston is here. i've been waiting for this conversation all week. you very much. >> lots going on. >> obviously the big news of the week, the attack in libya on the embassy and then also how it relates to this anti-muslim film. obviously within hours literally, that event became a campaign event. >> yeah. just amazing. and a lot of people say, you know, foreign policy, why this? it's unusual. it's unusual that foreign policy suddenly becomes center stage. absolutely. not without precedent. absolutely not. traditionally the nation has a very bipartisan attitude toward foreign policy. we just don't know a lot about it. we know that. we trust our leaders to go ahead in washington and do what they think is best. that's pretty much how we respond. lots of examples. iraq and afghanistan particularly in the early going crumbling of the soviet union is another example, cuban missiles, things like that. most recently of course iran's potential for developing nuclear weapons. fine and dandy. when this happens, and the nation gravitates around our leaders, the