CTA representatives are telling lawmakers that California's budget crisis is threatening to undermine the progress the state's public school students are making.
Noting that the governor and the Legislature have already slashed school spending by more than $3.1 billion, CTA President Wayne Johnson is cautioning that further cuts in classroom spending today will spell disaster for the state tomorrow.
"Additional budget cuts will make it harder to attract qualified teachers and keep them on the job," says Johnson. "Increasing class size and laying off teachers won't deliver students the education they deserve. Cutting education funding is a temptation the governor and the Legislature must resist."
Johnson is telling policy-makers that California schools "have been making significant progress in recent years. Teachers are working hard, test scores are up and more kids are graduating than ever before."
CTA analysts are also pointing out that major challenges are facing the state - including new federal requirements to place highly qualified teachers in every classroom by the year 2005.
Further cuts in state funding will cripple California's ability to deal with those challenges and will undermine the state's ability to recruit and retain the more than 30,000 highly qualified teachers the state will need every year for the next decade.
The redoubled efforts to protect school funding and Proposition 98 - the constitutional provision that guarantees schools at least a stable funding base - follow the release of a new report by the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office that sketches out the magnitude of California's fiscal problems.
At a November news conference, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill warned that the state's "fiscal condition has deteriorated substantially because of the economy's performance." Estimating that the state's budget deficit had reached $21 billion, Hill told reporters she was advising lawmakers that "everything should be on the table. We shouldn't leave one part of the budget excluded; we should look at everything on the revenue and expenditure side."
Adding that there is "no easy way out of this predicament," Hill said most of the easier solutions - including one-year funding changes - have already been used up.
In late November, Governor Gray Davis issued a call for a special legislative session in December to focus on ways to bridge the budget gap.
"Governor Davis and lawmakers have repeatedly said that education is their top priority," says Johnson. "Voters again sent a message in last month's elections that they overwhelmingly support spending more on our public schools - not less."
"Further reductions in school spending will threaten the progress our students and teachers have made. California must not let our schools slide into an education recession."
CTA along with other state education organizations is calling for a comprehensive plan to resolve the state's fiscal crisis and to address the needs of schools in future years.
CTA will continue to urge the governor, legislative leaders and others to craft a comprehensive proposal that protects the financial integrity of the state and maintains the momentum for improved student achievement.
Len Feldman
How you can help
Teachers can help win the fight to protect school funding by communicating with their lawmakers and the governor. Letters from constituents to local lawmakers are vital to helping public officials understand what is at stake, especially when they spell out in concrete terms what cuts in funding would do to students and classroom instruction. Let your legislators know that increasing class sizes and cutting resources to schools are not the best ways to improve student achievement.
If you need information about which lawmakers represent you, visit CTA's website www.cta.org, click on Politics and Legislation, and then choose Contact Your Lawmakers.
