CTA and Ed Coalition block massive midyear cuts
Volume 12, Issue 6 - March 2008
By Len Feldman
Putting their unity and their ability to mobilize to work, CTA and its Education Coalition partners have helped block massive mid-year cuts in school funding.
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| President David A. Sanchez and Sacramento City Teachers Association President Linda Tuttle (below) speak out against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed $4.8 billion in education funding cuts. |
“CTA and coalition members are working jointly to send a clear message to the governor and lawmakers,” says CTA President David A. Sanchez. “Students and public education didn’t cause the state’s budget problems, and the budget shouldn’t be balanced at their expense.”
CTA’s legislative team fought back several attempts to cut $1.5 billion from public schools in the current year. While any midyear cut will hurt, CTA limited the damage to $507 million and kept those cuts away from student programs. The reductions were made by taking unspent dollars from current accounts at the state level.
These cuts are far less disruptive than the more massive reductions in current-year programs that had been proposed.
However, the fight is far from over, warns the coalition, which represents more than a million teachers and other school personnel, parents, administrators and students. It is asking local affiliates of the various constituent organizations to form city and regional coalitions to help defeat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to slash $4.8 billion — nearly $800 per pupil — from public education in the coming year. Such cuts would make it necessary to increase class sizes, eliminate critical support staff, and devastate programs that schools have put in place to help students meet grade level standards and pass the high school exit exam.
A letter sent out in March to coalition members urges them to work together to oppose the cuts and convince the Legislature to reject the governor’s proposal to suspend the Prop. 98 funding guarantee. “It is important now more than ever that the education community come together to fight these devastating proposals to cut education funding,” the letter concludes.
Joint media events around the state are being held to inform voters that the cuts the governor has proposed would wreak havoc on California’s already underfunded public education system.