"Politics matters,” said CTA Executive Director Carolyn Doggett in her message to CTA’s State Council of Education. “It matters on the national level as much as at the state level.”
One example of how it matters is the No Child Left Behind Act, a law designed to help schools, but which is instead punishing them. “It grades schools on a single test and if they don’t improve, the answer is sanctions that include forcing local districts to pay for private industry solutions rather than giving public schools the actual resources they need to help all students succeed.”
“Changing this law depends on our ability to change the players in Washington,” said Doggett.
Two other schemes to be aware of, Doggett warned, include the “65 Percent Deception” and the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR).
On its face, the 65 Percent plan sounds like a good idea — it would require school districts to devote 65 percent of their operational budget to the classroom — but in reality it’s about pitting teachers against administrators in order to damage the union’s image with the public and force the union to spend money to defeat it. The plan is fronted by voucher supporter and Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist, a name familiar to the education community.
TABOR would cap state spending on the basis of population growth and the consumer price index. The goal is to shrink state budgets so severely that public services are pushed to the private sector. NEA and other state affiliates are fighting TABOR measures in 14 states. Several were defeated on Election Day.
Health care is another issue where politics matters. The only way to solve this problem, says Doggett, “is through a system of universal health care, and we’re never going to get that until we change faces here in California and in Washington.”