California Educator

February 09

Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/2864

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ACTION President Sanchez denounces manipulation of Prop. 98 attended earlier in the week, CTA President David A. Sanchez urged State Council “to take on the hum- bling tasks before us, and to protect our future generations — starting with the generation immediately at hand, the generation in our class- rooms, who every day must grow and strengthen and develop into America’s future.” Sanchez spoke about how the B governor wants to manipulate Prop. 98 illegally, eliminating the mainte- nance factor owed to schools in the 2008-09 budget, and permanently reduce the minimum funding base for schools. The law requires that a decrease in minimum funding dur- ing hard economic times must be repaid in better years. “The governor wants to forfeit uoyed by the words of Presi- dent Barack Obama, whose inauguration he had just on the state’s debt to education,” said Sanchez. “He wants to cut — per- manently — at least $7 billion from California’s students.” In response to these proposals, Sanchez urged State Council to en- courage local chapters to contact their legislators; to stage activities on March 13 (the day when thousands of layoff notices are to be sent out to the state’s educators); and to tell their story to the media and to the public. Council members made hun- dreds of phone calls to legislators during the Saturday session, urging them to resolve the state budget cri- sis and to raise revenues to adequate- ly fund education. Delegates also called California’s “Big 5” lawmakers (the governor and the leaders of the Assembly and the Senate), who were meeting on the budget crisis, to tell them that CTA will not accept any solution that undermines Prop. 98. The calls were well timed, since a new budget proposal was expected to come out of the Legislature within a week. Benjamin Quinones Jr., a mem- ber of the Association of Colton Ed- ucators and a recipient of a 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Scholarship, spoke about how CTA assisted him last year. Benjamin Quinones Jr., recipient of a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship (second from left), with CTA officers Dan Vaughn, David A. Sanchez, and Dean E. Vogel, wearing Read Across America shirts. “The fact that CTA would help to alleviate some of my financial burden with the MLK scholarship is very significant to me,” said Quino- nes. “I appreciate this support im- mensely, and it reaffirms my strong belief in union membership.” In addition to the Public School Investment and Accountability Act (see story on facing page), which Council voted in favor of pursuing, Sanchez promised Council that CTA will move ahead to seek other more permanent solutions to the chronic slashing of public education funding. “CTA can work wonders when our 340,000 members work togeth- er in powerful union to protect our students and our profession,” said Sanchez. “Get involved with your lo- cal chapter, and take part in budget activities that have been planned in your region. It is up to us.” Council gives go-ahead for funding initiative The State Council of Educa- tion voted in January to move ahead with plans to circulate an initiative that would imple- ment a 1 cent sales tax to pro- vide new, ongoing funding for public schools and colleges that cannot be cut, delayed or di- verted by the governor or the Legislature. CTA will move forward with the initiative provided that the special election is in November 2009 and that the Legislature does not raise additional reve- nues to solve the budget crisis. CTA photo by Dave Earl Carpenter

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