¡Sí Se Puede!

David A. Sanchez, CTA President

Growing up in rural California the son of two elementary school teachers, I learned at an early age the value of education. My parents were active in the union and incredibly spirited educators. Teach­ing was a vital part of their lives. I learned from them that being a teacher meant much more than opening a book and lecturing before a class. It meant caring about the students, about their futures, about the community around them.

So very much of what we do as educators is about helping people build and strengthen communities. It’s about pulling together the entire education family and creating a society that elevates all of its members equally.

It was stirring for me on May 14 to see the incredible turnout of teachers, school employees, parents and community supporters across the state on Day of the Teacher — on our day — coming together to rally against the proposed budget cuts. The tens of thousands of people gathered on street corners from Eureka to Chula Vista were amazing. You were lined up in the hot sun waving signs to educate people about the unfair cuts, to remind them that a quality education is the cornerstone of every successful life.

Over the past six weeks, the “Cuts Hurt” bus tour has visited 13 cities in California and given many of our members a chance to tell their stories. The final stop on May 20 at the Capitol, shortly after the release of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s May revision, was a fitting finale to it all. Our message was heard. They listened to our initial outcry and did not suspend Proposition 98.

But still there’s work to be done. A cuts-only approach is not acceptable, particularly when those cuts run more than $4 billion deep and into critical programs like class size reduction, which means squeezing even more students into California’s already overcrowded classrooms. It also means cutting programs that target low-income students and those schools that need help the most.

Other attempts by the governor to fix the budget deficit aren’t practical solutions either. His scheme to borrow against the state lottery puts current school funding at risk and fails to provide real, long-term revenue solutions. Schwarzenegger recently spoke about the California lottery’s being ranked 28th nationally and wondered how California, the eighth-largest economy in the world, could rank 28th at anything. A sad bit of irony, considering California schools continue to rank 46th in per-pupil funding and dead last in teachers, librarians and counselors per student. Closing the state’s $17 billion deficit by relying on more Californians — many of them low-income residents — to buy more lottery tickets is not a stable or long-term solution.

The revised budget proposal also offers no cost-of-living adjustment to any education program. That means less money to help recruit and retain quality teachers. And as districts pay more for gas to fuel school buses and more for other operating costs, our schools will once again be expected to do more with less.

My parents fought years ago for education and our rights as educators in our small town, and here I find myself proudly adding to their legacy as president of CTA. As we near the end of the traditional school year, we must remember that the budget fight does not take a break. We need to remain engaged. We need to remember what this is all about, why each of us chose this profession. The value of public education is why we fight.