Arnold Pays Off CTA
With a tax revenue windfall this year (evidently due in large part to Google stock sell-offs), California had enough money to restore billions to the education budget and silence the California Teachers Association for about 10 minutes. Gov. Schwarzenegger’s office thinks this will ease his ongoing battles with the public sector unions.
“I would think there comes a point where their membership begins to question why they would continue to spend [millions of dollars] to oppose a governor who has been a friend to education,” said Rob Stutzman, Schwarzenegger’s former communications director.
I don’t know if Stutzman actually believes this, or if he’s saying it for effect, but the “membership” didn’t spend the $60 million to defeat the governor’s initiatives. The members merely watched as additional money was taken from their paychecks. It was two dozen officers of the CTA who spent that money, with the rubber-stamp of 800 of CTA’s most committed activists.
Here’s how the math goes: $5 billion is added to the education budget; roughly half will end up as salary increases to CTA members; whose dues will rise in proportion to salary (and pay off CTA’s debt); whose contributions to the PAC will rise in proportion to dues; which will fund the campaigns of the governor’s opponents.
The real issue here isn’t even the money. It’s why the governor and the legislature of the State of California need a private organization to approve the state budget (see Are Teacher Unions the Fourth Branch of Government?, item #3).
Phony Teacher Retention Stat Media Update: In emphasizing the old age of the “half of teachers quit in five years” claim, EIA has failed to sufficiently emphasize that the original claim is that about half of new teachers in urban districts quit within five years. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 29 percent of teachers work in urban districts.
Nevertheless, the Reuters story continues to be replayed, having filtered down to the education blogs and even to the China Daily. You’d think those guys would recognize propaganda when they saw it.
May 11th, 2006 at 13:35
RE: Phony Teacher Retention
Richard Ingersoll’s paper (2004) about teachers in high-poverty schools uses SASS data. He finds that annual teacher turnover (voluntary and involuntary) in urban high-poverty schools is 22 percent. But even in these schools, teacher turnover is lower than employee turnover in some private professional and business services. See Bureau of Labor Statistics on VOLUNTARY employee turnover (firings and layoffs in these industries aren’t included in the Bureau of Labor statistics and inclusion of those numbers would obviously increase the turnover percentages greatly).
May 11th, 2006 at 21:53
Teachers are giddy about the potential for a second BIG raise in 6 years. I think that most teachers aren’t analytical about the overall situation of teaching, new teachers, money, state budgets; most people are, however, keenly aware of what 8% (eg.) increase means to their paycheck.
From a personal standpoint as a public school teacher, I will benefit, I guess. From a macro-view I am not really sure which candidate this leaves me in November. I voted for the Governator because he was going to stop silly spending and balance the budget. I’m not sure what he wants now: 35+ billion in new borrowing and a few billion thrown at the CTA. Who is this guy?
Between Arnold and Pres. Bush, the democrats look like the conservatives of 1990, on spending anyway, since they are the ones reigning in spending.
I remember under Gray Davis the CTA got a 1.9 billion dollar bonus for teachers(some rumors had the deal happening in a limo ride) and I couldn’t believe that the smoke-filled room politics of the Harding administration could still live on in such a blatantly open way. Arnold just made Gray look like a cheap tipper.
May 12th, 2006 at 00:37
**I remember under Gray Davis the CTA got a 1.9 billion dollar bonus for teachers(some rumors had the deal happening in a limo ride)**
That’s not a rumor. See
http://www.eiaonline.com/archives/20000717.htm