Posted on 04/12/2005 7:58:04 AM PDT by SmithL
California's teachers are girding for a battle royal.
The 335,000-member California Teachers Association began assembling a $60 million war chest last weekend to fight off Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's anticipated actions on school funding guarantees, teacher pay and tenure, all of which are expected to appear on a special election ballot in November.
More than 800 state union reps gathered in Los Angeles last weekend to discuss raising dues by $60 a year -- a three-year, 7 percent hike that will raise $54 million if approved. Members will vote in June.
"We've told people to go back to their locals and have discussions with their members to help us fight this impending battle," said CTA vice president Dave Sanchez. "We don't have the luxury of $100,000-a-plate (fund-raising) dinners. If and when he calls a special election, we want to be ready."
At issue is Schwarzenegger's proposal to tie teacher pay to test scores, lengthen the amount of time before a teacher earns tenure from two years to 10, and loosen school funding guarantees during fiscal crises.
The anti-Arnold campaign has already begun.
Protesters dog the governor's steps. Pro-education demonstrations, including rallies last week in Castro Valley and San Francisco, are springing up with increasing frequency. A new ad hit the airwaves Monday, paid for by the Education Coalition of parents, teachers, administrators and unions.
And Olympic High's soft-spoken Liane Cismowski reprimands the governor on prime time nearly every night.
"I don't want to go mano a mano with the governor," Cismowski said. "But I'm not a special interest. I'm a person, a teacher."
The Concord English teacher and Contra Costa County 2003 Teacher of the Year stars in CTA television ads airing statewide. Cismowski's heart lies in the classroom, not the political arena, she said, but the governor's attack on Prop. 98, which guarantees minimum school funding, gave her no choice.
"That's probably the only thing that could have induced me to do this," she said. "I really care about my students. It's not about administrators and teachers, it's public education."
It's just one salvo in a battle expected to cost Schwarzenegger reform backers $50 million and opponents $54 to $60 million. The special election itself will cost the state $70 million.
Some fear CTA's highly political actions and the bid to raise campaign funds may cause dissension in the teachers' ranks. Schwarzenegger's Coalition for Education Reform strategists are banking on that.
The reform group, which numbers teachers among its members, ran a half-page ad in the Sacramento Bee last week that called the dues increase a "$54 million teacher tax."
The ad was signed by eight teachers from six school districts, including Clovis, Kerman, Galt, Calaveras, Elk Grove and, in Southern California, Torrance.
But most of the signers are not members of the California Teachers Association, said Sanchez. Clovis does not even have a CTA chapter.
The pro-Schwarzenegger reform ad blasted the California Teachers Association for forcing them "to pay political dues to protect basic employment rights" and charged that teachers cannot vote on employment contracts, receive "real union representation," liability coverage and legal protection without funding the union's "political agenda."
But California teachers can opt out of their union's political activities at the local, state and national level without losing any of their rights and privileges, said CTA vice president Dave Sanchez.
Some teachers take that option. Others, like Mt. Diablo union president and CTA state representative Mike Noce, think the political lobbying is so worthwhile that they contribute more.
"This equalizes the little guy," said Noce. "It gives me a voice in Sacramento."
The current political climate has incensed teachers to such a degree that several teachers who initially opted out came back to Noce to change their minds, he said. Even political neophytes have hit the streets, demonstrating outside San Francisco's Ritz-Carlton Hotel last week when Schwarzenegger was in town to raise campaign money.
"I went to (UC) Berkeley but I never went to demonstrations," said Noce. "(This) has fired me up enough to be out on the streets with signs."
CTA may find itself fighting a broader war soon: Another initiative gathering steam for the November ballot would limit the ability of labor unions to bankroll any kind of political campaign.
• Teacher merit pay and tenure. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to tie teacher pay to student test scores and make teachers wait 10 years, not two, for tenure.
• Prop. 98 concerns. The governor's budget proposal grants increased education funds for 2005-06, but does not meet the minimum guaranteed by Prop. 98, the 1988 state constitutional amendment that guarantees minimum school funding. A state spending cap proposal vying for the November ballot would undercut Prop. 98 guarantees.
I live in Alaska; no sales, income, or prop taxes. Now I like lower taxes as much as the next guy; but our community infrastructure is beginning to fall apart. Continuous cuts only go so far, when schools begin to fall apart, then the dems get back in.
We need a balanced long term approach that achieves realistic goals, not political whims.
The teachers union must be stopped.
According to George Will, in the last 50 years student population has grown by 50%. In the same time the number of teachers has tripled! Yet the competency of education has declined. The NEA and local teachers unions are parasites living off the public education system and are destroying it. They must be stopped.
Is there any group or organization that is collecting money and running ads to counter the hogwsh that Barbara Kerr and her union cronies blather over the airwaves every day?
Teachers currently have the choice to not join a union and get their own liability insurance (about $100/year though several Christian organizations). BUT - this is a big secret the unions try to hide.
I find it ridiculous how so many teachers (and their unions) fight like crazy to maintain the status quo in education. When the U.S. placed 3rd from last in math and last in physics in the Third and Fourth International Math and Science Studies! Many third-world countries did better than our students did.
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