Welcome to the June 2002 State Council. This has been quite a year, to say the least. Two years and one month ago to the day, 10,000 of us were in Sacramento fighting for the $1.84 billion of the $20 billion surplus.

What a difference two years can make. Today we are looking at a $23.5 billion budget deficit. We have launched a legislative program to improve our classrooms to improve our profession.

Our legislative program is centered on our priorities.

• School Funding
  • California - $7,662
  • Connecticut - $11,118
  • New York - $10,744
  • New Jersey - $10,326
  • Delaware - $9,532
  • Live Oak, Santa Cruz - $4,000
  • Chaffee in Ontario - $5,000

• Building more schools and classrooms
  • CTA fought for the $13 billion school facilities bond that will be on the November ballot.

• Professional Development
  • We have been working to bring more professional development to our young teachers who desire it.
  • Just one example is we now have two Good Teaching Conferences.

• Last and certainly not least, more professional control of our classrooms

I want to thank all of you for the incredible amount of work you have done to support this agenda.

You have written letters.

You have sent e-mail.

You have traveled to Sacramento to lobby on behalf of our legislation.

You have done this at the same time that many of you have been fighting in your local districts for a fair settlement.

You have to know how much we appreciate all your efforts.

Without you and your organizing efforts and your strong will, CTA is nothing.

From the bottom of our hearts -- thank you!

Since we last met, there has been a statewide firestorm over our teacher professional legislation program, our meetings with the Governor.

A story that caused a minor earthquake in Sacramento was the one where we said we were sick and tired of politicians that come and beg for our endorsement -- get it -- take our organizational support and then vote against us on basic issues like due process for first and second year teachers, and AB2160, and testing reform. I was called an extortionist, a thug, trying to buy votes, etc.

Several Democrats did exactly this on AB2160 and due process for first and second year teachers.

Assembly Democrats pulled AB2160 and didn't even bring it to a vote. Our legislation died in the back rooms of Sacramento. They didn't have the guts to look us in the eye and vote against us.

CTA supported legislation to gain due process rights for first and second year teachers died in the Senate Education Committee.

As I said, we have been called thugs and extortionists, because we are angry with so-called friendly legislators who lied to us.

They don't like the fact that we point out their dishonesty and disloyalty.

I guess we want all of our legislators to be as honest and loyal as Jackie Goldberg.

Two pieces of CTA sponsored legislation that are still alive, just barely.

The first is AB2347, the Goldberg testing bill. This legislation has been gutted but is still alive. In a nutshell, this bill would have tested kids on what they are actually taught, not in a language they don't understand. The test would have been criterion-referenced, and not norm-referenced. That's still there.

All that is left is that now we still have the Star 9 test, accommodations must be given to English language learners and special education students. Nothing has changed for the other 4 million students.

We will still test kids on things they are not taught. We still have a norm-referenced test. Test results will still reflect socio-economic status rather than knowledge and you will still be beaten up to raise test scores when it is virtually impossible. To all of our friends in the State Assembly, thank you very much!

The other piece of legislation that I want to talk about is AB2160. As I said, that legislation died in the back rooms of Sacramento.

The attack on this legislation was amazing. The concept here is simple. Give teachers a voice in what they teach. Some of the opposition was not surprising.

We knew the administrators would hate it. It is a turf war with them. Curriculum and textbook selection was their private domain, no teachers allowed. They said, "AB2160 is a solution in search of a problem." And, "This bill is a tremendous new bureaucracy that could slow down any meaningful reforms that administrators feel are necessary to improve student achievement.

The School Boards went along. That's not so unusual. They almost always do what administrators tell them to do for fear of making a mistake.

The Business Roundtable's opposition was a little surprising until we analyzed it.

First, they hate unions.

Second, they hate collective bargaining.

AB2160 would expand collective bargaining, and give CTA some voice control over curriculum and textbook selection. Our tools that we use in our class.

Textbooks and curriculum sales are multi-billion dollar businesses in California. Business and administrators only, no teachers allowed.

The Business Roundtable hired the public relations firm Goddard Classen to run a statewide campaign against AB2160. That's the same group that ran the campaign against Clinton's healthcare program in 1994.

They went to the editorial boards -- editorial boards generally don't like unions either. It was an easy sale to get editorials against AB2160.

They ran ads in newspapers against 2160.

The opposition has spent a lot of money, time and effort fighting CTA. Now they know what it's like to play defense.

The opposition that really surprised us was the PTA. The PTA took an oppose position to a bill that would professionalize teaching.

An organization that is supposed to be non-partisan with teacher in its name took a position against teachers.

An organization that has, I would expect 200,000 teacher members.

Unbelievable!

Another area that we must face and fight is the mismanagement of local districts.

Thousands of local teachers are being treated in a very unprofessional manner.

I was in South Orange County where the bureaucrats in Irvine, Saddleback, and San Juan Capistrano are offering teachers a zero percent raise. And doing away with class size reduction.

This offer of zero -- despite the fact that the state last year gave every district full growth funding and a 3.8% cost of living allowance -- is a slap in the face. They are saying, "We have the money, we are not going to give it to you."

I was just in Jurupa, they are being offered a 1% increase.

Santiago Woods reneged on the contractually agreed to COLA raise for teachers this year in Fresno.

Roy Romer now spends $180 million more on consultants than he did last year, is offering teachers a zero raise, and is demanding teachers sign a commitment form that contains a dress code.

Alan Bersin, the Superintendent and the three anti-teacher members of the five-member San Diego School Board just imposed a 1.3% raise on teachers. Bersin has wasted millions on a huge bloated bureaucracy and outside consultants like Brian Bennett, the former Chief Spokesperson for "Yes on Prop. 38" and now Bersin's consultant on charter schools.

Gray Davis appointed Bersin, who does not have a credential and never taught a day, Chair of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

Davis has failed to appoint a single CTA teacher to this commission.

In fact, he has only appointed two CTA members to anything in three and one half years.

Class size reduction is under attack. Right wing extremists are out saying there is no data that shows that class size reduction improves learning.

There are many studies that show class size reduction really works. This data is ignored and the myth that it doesn't work is being pushed by the likes of the Pacific Institute, Heritage Foundation, School Services and James Fleming, the $200,000 a year superintendent of San Juan Capistrano, who is currently offering teachers no raise.

Just to give you an idea of the terrible conditions that all California teachers work in.

On April 30, Lou Harris released the results of a survey of California teachers.

Mr. Harris said, "Without doubt the California education system is failing to provide a significant minority of students the basic environment in which they can learn."

32.1% of classroom teachers who teach 1.9 million kids don't have enough textbooks so every child can take home a book to do homework.

Don't forget to raise those test scores.

32.3% of schools serving 2 million students have inadequate heating and cooling systems.

27.3% of teacher teaching 1.7 million students report their schools are infested with cockroaches and mice or rats.

Harris concluded his report by saying "California should be embarrassed by the state of their public schools."

These are your teaching conditions, these are the kids learning conditions, teaching, working in these disgusting conditions you are supposed to raise test scores and work miracles with underprivileged students.

No wonder there is a huge teacher shortage and growing worse every year.

Professor Richard Ingersoll reported in Education Week on April 20, 2002 that he had surveyed more than 50,000 teachers nationwide. Teachers today have a very high turnover rate.

Most professions have a turnover rate per year of 11%; teacher turnover is 13.2% per year.

Professor Ingersoll reported, that 29% of new teachers quit within three years -- 39% of new teachers quit within five years.

Private school teachers leave at a higher turnover rate than public school teachers. The top two reasons for leaving public school teaching are:

• Dissatisfaction with job.
• Low pay.

Twenty percent of teachers said "lackluster administrative support" was the cause of their frustration, and dissatisfaction and leaving teaching.

Ingersoll said, recruiting more teachers is, "It's like pouring water into a bucket with holes."

Mr. Ingersoll went on to say, schools might have better luck meeting their demands for teachers, by:

• Increasing support for teachers
• Raising salaries
• Reducing student misbehavior
• Giving faculty members more say in school decision-making.

What a great idea, why didn't we think of that?

Are all of you enlightened educational reformers listening to Dr. Ingersoll?

Administrators, are you listening to Dr. Ingersoll?

School boards are you listening to Dr. Ingersoll?

PTA, are you listening to Dr. Ingersoll?

Raise salaries, reduce student misbehavior, give teachers more say in school decision-making is the solution to solving the growing teacher shortage. All this from a respected academic researcher.

The most pressing issue facing California teachers today is next years education budget.

As I said, the state is facing a budget deficit of $23.5 billion.

Davis has said on two occasions publicly that he might have to suspend Prop. 98, which guarantees at least 40% of the state budget to public education.

Kevin Gordon, Executive of California Association of School Business Officers, and professional Gray Davis clone, agreed with the Governor and said suspension of Prop. 98 would be OK.

To say the least, we were very apprehensive about the Governor's May Revision. Which is the Governor's final budget proposal.

We are happy that the Governor did not propose to suspend Prop. 98. He did propose:

• Full growth funding
• 2% COLA to revenue limit for K-12 districts, county offices of education and special education programs.
• All categorical programs received a 1.66% COLA
• There are $418.3 million in cuts of current programs.
• $207 million of those cuts are for the Governors school and certificated performance awards. That's a great cut!

This is a proposed budget. It must be passed by both houses of the legislature.

That will be a fight; this is not a done deal.

CTA is going to work the budget debate to make sure that the harm done to public schools next year be held to a minimum.

We will again need your help to try and hold the line with some legislators of legislator friends to keep them supporting this education budget proposal.

As I said, the debate over 2160 in the last several weeks has been statewide. The attacks on CTA and teaching for simply raising the issue have been unbelievable and very acrimonious. The attitude has been how dare you raise this issue. Learn to stay in your place.

Several CTA endorsed candidates told us in interview after interview that they supported collective bargaining, that they supported teacher professional rights. They supported the expansion of teacher collective bargaining. They lied. Pure and simple!

We learned that they either didn't support it or their belief in these areas was weak and they had misled us in their candidate interviews.

When the whole world lines up against you, your prospects of success diminish. We expected the Sacramento Bee, the Fresno Bee, the L.A. Times, the San Diego Union Tribune, and the Orange County Register to oppose AB2160. We didn't expect administrators to support it! We didn't expect the California Business Roundtable to support it!

But when people we endorse, people we have supported for years turn their backs on you, that is a surprise.

Gray Davis' position did surprise us.

His early, strong, opposition was a surprise.

It is now obvious that he takes his marching orders from the Business Roundtable and the business community. He has no real philosophical support for any union.

But Assembly members and Senators whom we have always supported who walked away did surprise us.

The pressure that had to be applied to get yes votes on the Assembly Education and Appropriations was unbelievable. Many in this room applied that pressure, you know!

It appears that these legislators have learned to tell CTA what we want to hear in the interviews for endorsement, and then vote for the status quo.

They seem to be saying you endorse us and we will vote against a few things for you, but don't ask us to vote for things. Don't ask us to vote for you if the business community is opposed, no matter how much sense it makes.

Voting for the status quo in light of the national "Leave No Child Behind" campaign and the proposed California Master Plan, (which by the way was mostly written by anti-CTA consultants.) is not good enough!

We did put the entire anti-CTA cabal on the defensive with AB2160. Jackie Goldberg's legislative leadership forced our enemies into the light of day. Jackie is simply the best! We made our enemies fight our educational reform. They spent a lot of money and energy fighting legitimate reform. CTA in now driving the education debate in California.

We now know exactly where they stand. We now understand the enormity of the job ahead of us to make major positive changes for teachers and our classrooms. We now understand the tremendous force in California to maintain the status quo and keep teachers in our place.

Public education needs major improvements; teachers need major improvements in our professional lives.

Teachers need a real voice in what we do in our classrooms every day!

The status quo is not good enough.

Some of the people we have endorsed and worked hard to get elected have not held up their end of the bargain.

They don't support our core issues and now we know that.

We support moderate Republicans that don't support all of our issues; we know that, that is an honest relationship.

Many Democratic legislators obviously take CTA for granted.

They expect us to accept the status quo while public education is slowly bleeding to death.

We were shocked that legislation to give due process rights to first and second year teachers was killed in the Senate Education Committee.

Now we have this Master Plan legislation. The consultants, we are told, ignored teacher testimony and wrote the plan, much of which we will now end up fighting.

1. It is a real hit on collective bargaining.
2. Calls for career ladders for teachers.
3. Calls for merit pay.
4. Calls for a teaching and learning index very similar to the API. No one knows how it will be used but we can guess.

The AB2160 debate has been very revealing. No one is fooling anyone any more.

We now know who is with us and we now know who is against us.

No more games.

CTA must now deal with the real world.

We now know what administrators and school boards really think of us. What they really think of your professional status. What they really think of your professional judgment. What they really think of the job you do every day. Many have already shown us all this at the bargaining table over the years.

CTA is a very sophisticated political organization. Maybe we have been too trusting, however.

CTA has been the gentle giant in Sacramento.

We have been very kind to our friends, maybe too kind.

Listen to what State Senator Richard Polanco said about the Prison Guards Union. Remember prison guards retire at 50 with 90% of salary and benefits, and they make a lot more than teachers. Senator Polanco took their endorsement and then voted against their legislation. Then he ran for the L.A. City Council. The prison guard union then ran an all out campaign against him and he pulled out of the race for L.A. City Council.

Senator Polanco said in the Los Angeles Times, "This union has tremendous influence. We know it. They put the fear into people! Legislators will do whatever the union wants, for fear it will come after them in an election year. They play hardball."

The prison guards kept Polanco from being elected to the Los Angeles City Council, because he had not lived up to his commitment to them.

CTA's political agenda is good. It is an agenda that helps children.

CTA's political agenda is fighting to improve public education.

CTA's political agenda is one that works for and supports one of the best-educated and lowest paid professions in California and America -- teachers.

CTA's agenda is quality teachers, quality education for all of our children, and that is essential to the future of our state.

CTA's agenda is fighting to improve the education of two million kids that live below the poverty line and are falling between the educational cracks.

CTA's agenda wants to build new schools and repair old ones so each kid can attend school in a clean, bright, warm or cool depending, with enough textbooks and supplies to properly educate them.

CTA's agenda wants to reduce class size in grades K-12.

CTA's agenda is one that every member can be proud of.

And yet our legislative friends shoot down our agenda, with weak excuses that make no sense.

We have to make sure to support politicians who share our agenda for students, teachers and public schools.

We owe that to 6.2 million K-12 kids.

We owe that to our 333,000 members.

These legislators know they have not treated CTA and teachers right.

CTA must re-evaluate and revise our legislative agenda.

Now we must move on with a new understanding of our legislative relationships.

What support means and more important what it does not mean and will not be tolerated.

We will have victories like the $1.84 billion two years ago.

We will have set backs like AB2160.

AB2160 was tremendous effort that showed the strength of CTA. You moved that legislation way beyond what anybody thought possible.

We proved our strength in this fight, and as I said, we now dominate the educational debate in California. We must continue to do this.

But we can't stop fighting. I tell you that when we get organized and start fighting together we are an awesome force.

When we act, our enemies must react. CTA must stay proactive.

In a long fight, 335,000 CTA members will win the ultimate battle. We will wear them down and wear them out.

We are too smart, we are too strong, what we are fighting for is right. What we are fighting for is necessary to the future of our state. Necessary for 6.4 million kids.

We must stay the course, and put the heat on our opponents, on our friends, only then will we win.

If we do that, we will win.

Thank you very much. God Bless You All!