California Education Policy in a Nutshell
Last month the California Teachers Association put up a billboard designed to look like a pink slip which targeted state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento).
If you can’t make out the message from the accompanying photo, it reads:
Dear Senator Steinberg,
Stop the blame. Stop the cuts.
Protect our students & public schools.
325,000 340,000 California Classroom Teachers
CTA also sent direct mail to residents of Steinberg’s district because the union feels he hasn’t been “sufficiently supportive.”
The Sacramento Bee reported:
CTA President David Sanchez said Monday the union wants Steinberg to “hear loud and clear” that after two years of budget chopping, schools “just can’t take any more cuts.”
Now Steinberg has responded with a mailing to educators, which reads in part:
“The only tool we’ve had to slow the bleeding is Proposition 98 (the law that guarantees schools a minimum amount of general fund money). Since I became the leader of the Senate eighteen months ago, we have been able to increase Proposition 98 funding by $1.6 billion.”
So any layman who puts these two stories together can only assume that two years of budget chopping resulted in a $1.6 billion increase. Either Sanchez or Steinberg is full of crap - maybe both. But it’s edifying to see that two of the people most responsible for the current level of education spending in California can’t even agree how much it is.
