• 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.