Volume 10, Issue 2, October 2005
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Barbara E. Kerr CTA President |
"Just because you do not take an interest in politics, doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."
An Athenian statesman wrote those words in the fifth century B.C. Not only do they still ring true today, but the observation probably applies to many of you in this special election.
None of us went into teaching because we wanted to get involved in politics. We became teachers because we want to make a difference. We want to help children gain the knowledge they need to succeed in this world. We want to help make our communities better places to live. We believe in public education and the role it plays in our democracy.
However, that doesn't mean politics doesn't take an interest in us. Local school boards and the State Board of Education make decisions about what textbooks we use in our classrooms. State lawmakers decide how large our classes will be. And state and federal laws now dictate the standardized tests our kids must pass and even rank our schools based on those scores. Yes, from getting a teaching credential to the amount of paper we're allowed to use in the copier each month, some elected official has been part of that decision. Politics is in our classrooms every day.
This special election and this governor have made it clearer than ever. Make no mistake, if we do not defeat Gov. Schwarzenegger's initiatives — Propositions 74, 75 and 76 — they will dramatically change our classrooms, our profession and public education in this state.
For reasons we may never know, in January, Gov. Schwarzenegger threw down the gauntlet to teachers. He called us a "special interest" the state must battle against. He said teachers are too often paid for "just showing up." And he broke his promises to parents, teachers, students and our public schools by refusing to repay the $2 billion he borrowed from education or to uphold the law voters approved to guarantee minimum education funding.
His proposals would "reform" education by cutting the school funding base by $4 billion a year, making sure he never has to repay the money he borrowed from education, destroying Proposition 98, giving him the power to cut school budgets in the middle of the year without consulting anyone else, extending the probationary period for new teachers to five years (making California's teacher probationary period one of the longest in the country), denying due process rights to teachers before they are dismissed, and trying to silence our voices in all public policy discussions.
Funny, I thought the goal was to improve public education — not hurt our schools and kids. All of his initiatives are bad ideas that don't improve student learning or the teaching profession. They take California in the wrong direction.
I've said before that Prop. 75, the initiative that would put unfair restrictions on CTA and other public employee unions but not the governor's big-business, special-interest donors, is what this special election is really all about. Remember, the governor's own campaign advisers said back in May that their game plan was to create a "phenomenon of anger" against teachers, nurses, firefighters and other public employees.
They are now working that game plan by trying to divide us and pit member against member. We cannot let them execute their plan. The issues in this election aren't Republican or Democratic. They aren't conservative or liberal. They are about the future of public education in this state and about how we do our jobs in our classrooms every day.
In the last weeks of this campaign, we must all take an interest in politics. Contact your local association and volunteer to work phone banks or walk precincts. Get out into your community and talk to parents and neighbors about the importance of this election and what's at stake for our schools and kids. We are all in this together, and united we can send a loud and clear message to the governor and his special-interest pals. On Nov. 8, vote NO on Props. 74, 75 and 76.
