FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BURLINGAME – In a new California Republican Party television ad about the governor's education agenda, the governor continues to try to distract the public from his broken promises to our schools and ignores the real crisis of school underfunding, California Teachers Association President Barbara E. Kerr said today.
"The governor can play with the numbers all he wants, but it doesn't change the fact that he broke his promise to public education," Kerr said. "Our students and teachers are suffering as a result, and our schools are paying the price."
In one sign of financial hardship in school districts, more than 2,400 teachers received preliminary layoff notices by the Tuesday, March 15, deadline.
Kerr said the governor wants to weaken Proposition 98, the voter-approved funding law that guarantees minimum funding for our schools, and reneged on his promise to pay back the $2 billion he borrowed from education funding during last year's budget crisis. These proposals alone would shortchange every classroom in the state by some $25,000.
The 335,000-member CTA began airing its TV ads Monday to expose the fact that Governor Schwarzenegger's education agenda does nothing to improve student learning. The CTA TV ads, supported by a radio ad campaign also airing now in every major media market, set the record straight about the destructive education agenda of the governor, and its impacts on classrooms.
The governor's ad, released by the state GOP, does not mention that California's public schools have already suffered billions of dollars in cuts the past four years, or that a recent RAND Corp. report found that our schools are some of the most overcrowded and poorly funded in the nation.