Slashing $4.8 billion from the state budget for public education would be “disastrous for our public schools, higher education, students and their futures,” warned a resolution CTA’s State Council of Education passed at its February meeting.
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| Frances Zumwalt of the Grossmont Educators Association and Morgan H. Brown of Associated Pomona Teachers debate the Educational Change report. |
Delegates expressed outrage that the budget plan would propose such catastrophic cuts and that the governor would seek to suspend Proposition 98, the state’s minimum school funding law.
The resolution put in perspective the damage such cuts would cause. It’s the equivalent of increasing class sizes statewide by as much as 35 percent when California already ranks 46th in the nation in per-pupil spending, has some of country’s largest class sizes, and “ranks dead last in the number of counselors, school nurses and librarians per student.”
Proposed cuts to higher education will be devastating as well, as the resolution indicated. The state’s community college system stands to lose more than $500 million, the California State University system over $300 million, and the University of California $109 million.
“CTA calls on the governor and the Legislature to put our students first, reject across-the-board cuts that would damage our public schools, [and] protect the voter-approved, minimum school funding law, Proposition 98,” the resolution states. The governor and the Legislature must “show true leadership by setting realistic state budget priorities” and developing a balanced approach to spending cuts and revenue increases to close the budget hole.
The document is posted in the “Budget Crisis” section of the CTA website.