Johnson: "We are in a fight to save public education"

Vowing to preserve Class Size Reduction in California schools, reform the "testing mess," and expand collective bargaining to include professional issues, CTA President Wayne Johnson threw down the gauntlet to those who would destroy public education in remarks before CTA's State Council.

With their influence and votes in Congress, these people have made sure education has been underfunded for 25 years, Johnson said. Despite this neglect by the federal government, public schools continue to do an incredible job, Johnson said.

Johnson called on the State Council to continue to tell the truth about public education and to fight on behalf of teachers and students. It was teachers, he reminded them, that defeated the Draper Voucher Initiative in 2000, and the Prop. 174 voucher initiative in 1993. It was teachers who were responsible for the passage of Prop. 98 that provided a funding guarantee for education in California. And it is teachers who must fight the current battles, he said.

For one, he urged Council to fight to preserve Class Size Reduction in the face of threats to cut the program.

The CTA President also asked Council members to actively support the CTA-sponsored legislation, AB 2160, that would expand collective bargaining to include the right to negotiate the process for selection of curriculum, professional development, and textbooks.

Vehement opposition to the bill by administrators statewide "surprised even us," he said.

"The bureaucrats are fighting to maintain their total control of schools and exclude teacher involvement in the educational decisions that affect our classrooms," Johnson said, while vowing to keep up the pressure in Sacramento to get the bill passed.

"With 335,000 teachers organized and fighting, they can't beat us," Johnson said.

Johnson used unequivocal language in taking on the enemies of public education, including such proponents of vouchers as former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Secretary of Education Rod Paige, Christian Right leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, and U.S. Senators Trent Lott and Tom DeLay.

"We are in a fight to save public education, not only in California, but in the United States," Johnson said. "It is sad to say there are many Americans who want to destroy the most successful public education system in the world."

CTA State Council takes action

In a packed weekend of activity, the State Council made recommendations on hundreds of legislative bills, greeted California's Teachers of the Year, and elected a number of people to CTA offices. Council also welcomed Assembly Member Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles), state Attorney General Bill Lockyer and film star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Among its actions, the State Council:

• Recommended John Garamendi for Insurance Commissioner;
• Endorsed Dennis Van Roekel for NEA Vice President;
• Elected Sacramento Council Representative Janice Auld as NEA Director for District 12;
• Re-elected Dean Vogel, Paula Caplinger, Deborah V. Harrison, Joyce E. Lewke, Tom Conry and David Hernandez to the Board of Directors by waiving the ballot;
• Elected Charles R. Tubbs as NEA Alternate Director;
• Welcomed three of the five California Teachers of the Year: Carol Brouhle, Janet Gower and Marvin Inmon.
• Elected Rob Collins, Danny Howerton, Leslie Littman, Helen Gammage-Durham and Don Taylor to the Association for Better Citizenship (ABC) Committee.

Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, a sponsor of key CTA bills to expand collective bargaining to include professional issues and to change the testing system, proved she is still a teacher at heart in remarks to CTA's State Council.

Goldberg laid out a vision for setting up public education that uses the same principles advocated by the California Business Roundtable - one of public education's chief critics - that includes pushing decision-making downward.

"If we were going to get and keep the best and the brightest, we would be treating teachers as the professionals they are, and we would have them in partnership every step of the way in decisions about what happens in the classroom," she said.

Goldberg maintains that the roles in education have been confused. It should be the role of the State Board of Education to set the goals and to set the standards, that reflect the modern day workplace and community at large — "and then they should be quiet."

Testing, Goldberg said, "should only see that we are reaching those goals for all children. And it should not be norm-referenced, because there is no way for anyone to get off the bottom."

The Legislature's role, Goldberg said, should be to say to local districts, "What do you need in the way of facilities, in the way of salaries, in the way of equipment, in the way of materials, in budgets for materials?"

Under Goldberg's vision, large block grants would be sent to each district to cover those expenses.

After that, at the local district, there should be a partnership led by classroom teachers. Parents need to tell teachers about their children. "We need to know who the client is, and they need to help us understand them," she said, of the parents' role. "We need to do much more to let parents know they have valuable information for us."

School administrators need either to handle the administrative roles or be connected to the classroom by teaching each day.

"What we have now is neither, and it is making things tense and difficult where they should not be," she said. "The way things are set up now, I would not be a principal for anything in the world," since they have no responsibility for local decision-making.

Goldberg wasn't sure what was going to happen to AB 2160 in the Assembly Education Committee later in the week, but she vowed to continue to fight for it.

"I'm into this for a penny and for a pound. It is the heart of my soul," she said.

Sooner or later, everyone is going to figure out that any real reform that could possibly come in California schools will be organized by classroom teachers," she said.

Schwarzenegger charms Council

Charming the crowd, pressing the flesh, and graciously posing for photographs, superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger of bodybuilding and "Terminator" film fame, stopped by State Council Saturday morning to thank CTA for supporting his after-school program initiative that is to appear on the November ballot.

The After School Education and Safety Act would make after school programs available to every public elementary and middle school in California that chooses to apply - without infringing on education funding. CTA was an early supporter of the initiative.

If passed, the act may make available more than $400 million annually to provide matching grants to every elementary and middle-school in California. The former chairman of the President's Physical Fitness Council has previously started the Inner City Games, which serves more than 200,000, and an after-school program in Los Angeles called Arnold's All Stars.

"There are so many millions of children out there who are home alone," Schwarzenegger said. "We are such a fantastic state... we can do a much better job than what we are doing right now."

The school programs would offer students help with homework, tutoring, activities and sports five days a week. "to make sure that each child in California has the same opportunity I had," he added.

Dropping a line made famous in his Terminator movies, Schwarzenegger added, "And, if we win in November, you can be sure, 'I'll be back!' "