New Year's wishes, like New Year's resolutions, have short lives. You certainly wished for peace, along with the earnest hope that education in California would survive the wretched state of the national economy. I can have no revelation for you regarding international affairs, but I do have crushing news about the future of our schools.
You have read Governor Davis' statements about the budget deficit and know that he is proposing serious cuts in many areas of the state's expenditures. What hasn't really sunk in yet for us, as teachers and caretakers of public education, is the looming disaster before us. Davis is proposing a $2.7 billion cut for K-12 and community colleges for the remainder of this 2002-03 school year. These would be across-the-board cuts, hitting everywhere without attention to specific programs. That method of budgeting cuts, according to the legislative analyst, is a wrong approach. The legislative analyst agrees with CTA that education cuts should be targeted to specific programs that do not have a direct effect on student services, and says, "some reductions should be deferred in order to protect schools from making drastic cutbacks in the middle of this school year."
Davis has said that education is his first, second and third priority. But his intention to slash funds - and do it in scattershot fashion - belies his claim; instead, he is abandoning the schools, leaving them to sink in the budget mess. It is especially ironic that he should be planning to undercut education since he brags that California has the fifth largest economy in the world (we passed France last summer). That big an economy cannot educate its children decently?
In spite of its status in the world economy, California ranks 29th in funding among the states, and is $700 per student below the national average for educational funding. Surely, this state can take care of its kids and their teachers better than that!
And wouldn't you know that our "friends" the administrators are ready to make hay out of the crisis in funding. The Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) is advocating abandonment of the K-3 class size reduction cap of 20 students. That's the beginning of their agenda. They also want to waive the ruling about layoff notices for certificated personnel, enabling them to fire teachers without any notice. And, of course, you can bet that they will come to your bargaining tables demanding not only that class size be increased (California has the largest class size in the nation now; Los Angeles Unified has already raised the class size average to 40), but they will also demand that teachers take a pay freeze or a pay cut. And after that will come the demand for major cuts in your medical benefits.
Take that abstract figure of $2.7 billion and bring it down to what it would mean for our schools. If they cut that amount in the spring, it could mean that 50,000 teachers would be laid off or that schools would have to eliminate at least three weeks of school. That would equate to a 5 percent pay cut this year for teachers.
Obviously, we have to fight, and fight hard, to prevent the Legislature from making those cuts in an across-the-board fashion. We must keep the cuts away from our classrooms and our professional salaries and benefits. We know, and must make the Legislature understand, that any measure that negatively affects our classrooms directly must be prevented - and anything that affects us as teachers affects our classrooms.
The Legislature must devise a multiyear strategy rather than dealing a death blow to public schools with one massive cut. In our fight to save our schools, we must insist that every district chop from the top - slashing useless administrative positions and worthless programs that don't help kids, like the hugely expensive testing program. Don't forget that the Center for Educational Statistics at the U.S. Department of Education reported in 2001 that California has one administrator for every 13.4 teachers. That's a very expensive ratio.
As Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University reported in 2001, "California spends about 35 percent of total education dollars on teachers' salaries, a very low percentage compared to other states."
The state must not balance its budget on the backs of our students or our teachers. It doesn't need to. The job can be done without crippling education.
We have the fight of our lives ahead of us. We must make legislators and local school districts do what is right for our classrooms, and that won't be easy. It will take hard work, tenacity and faith in our goal of better schools for our kids.
As a first step, chapters must organize members and communities to convince legislators not to increase class size or cut education funding.
Make no mistake about it: we can win this fight if we put our minds to it. I know that when 335,000 CTA members make up their minds to do something, we will make it happen. Let's win this fight!
