Pledge Signed by State Leaders Ignores Constituents
By signing against tax extensions, state leaders are ignoring the need at the school district.
Members of the California State legislature applaud as California Gov. Jerry Brown (center) arrives to deliver the State of the State address at the California State Capitol on Monday, Jan. 31, 2011 in Sacramento, CA. One month after taking office, Gov. Brown delivered the State of the State address to a joint session of the California State legislature.
Justin Sullivan, Getty Images
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I was extremely disheartened to learn last week that all three state legislators representing students of the Poway Unified School District—Assembly member Nathan Fletcher, Sen. Joel Anderson and Sen. Mark Wyland—had signed a pledge to vote against allowing their constituents the opportunity to vote on a tax extension measure on the June 2011 special election ballot that would protect education from deeper budget cuts.
Three weeks ago I joined 140 PTA moms and dads from around the state on a trip to Sacramento to advocate for the children. All of us volunteers, we dropped carpools, sporting events, nightly homework and family dinners to lobby for education. Like many parents, I was armed with almost 100 impassioned letters from students—from fourth-graders to high school seniors. One would have to be a stone not to be moved by the pleas for smaller classes in order to have greater interaction with the teacher, basic classroom supplies, science lab equipment, art, field trips, workbooks, textbooks, programs for gifted and struggling students alike, PE and restored library hours.
For my part, I cited the example of the Black Mountain Academy at Black Mountain Middle School as an example of the world turned upside down. This KIPP-based Academy (Knowledge is Power Program) requires contractual commitments of character and academics from the students. The students have an extra hour of school each day, plus a summer session, for 25 percent more learning. Last year, the waiting list to get into the program exceeded 150 students. Because of budget cuts the program cannot be expanded and, in fact, has been modified. In addition, the Poway Unified school year has been shortened by five days. Picture a world where students are banging on the doors of institutions of knowledge, begging for more learning and the adults are standing there in front of padlocked gates saying “No!” There is no more precious resource than the mind of a child and we are squandering it.
Kimberley Beatty serves as legislation chair and board member for three Poway Unified school site PTAs: Mount Carmel High School, Black Mountain Middle School and Creekside Elementary.
How do you feel about the move by the state leaders? Do you have a child in the school district?
Tell us in the comments.
Eugene Roberts
5:21 pm on Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Anyone who argues for more taxes in one of the most highly taxed states (ours) needs to read the independent LHC study about California's pension crisis and excessive public union givaways:
http://www.lhc.ca.gov/studies/204/Executive%20Summary204.pdf
Teachers consistently get their way by using our kids as a shield whenever hard choices have to be made regarding the cost of their pensions and benefits. Parents predictably react by opening their wallets which then preserves the status quo. This goes on year after year, and now we've reached a crisis point.
Education already gets a guaranteed 40% of the entire state budget, and of this, about 80% goes to teacher salaries and benefits. Without public union reform, we’re simply kicking the can down the road.
If teachers truly cared about our kids, they'd agree to take a pay cut, reduce their pension benefits, or start contributing to their health care costs like the rest of us. Instead, they stand their ground and allow their untenured colleagues to suffer any layoffs that do occur (which are far fewer than they'd have you believe) and then play the sympathy card in order to extract more money from us in the form of additional taxes and bonds.
Taxpayers are finally starting to figure this all out and can no longer be counted on to drink the 'my poor kid will suffer' kool-aid every time the bogus teacher layoff notices go out in March. Thank goodness our local representatives have figured it out too.