Thank you for that great introduction.

We have had a terrible two months, the destruction in New York was beyond belief. It has made the start of the school year more difficult than usual.

Barbara, David, John Hein and I met with Governor Davis in his home on October 8. I started the meeting by telling him the Officers agreed that CTA needed to endorse his re-election campaign. I also told him that I wasn't sure that we could get it done. I told him that he needed 60% of State Council to vote to endorse him and we were not sure that we could get it.

Governor Davis is very concerned about getting the CTA endorsement for his re-election. We talked about several other matters, one being 80% of purchasing power that was on his desk - he signed it a few days later.

The California budget this year is 4.5% less than last year's budget. But the education budget is 5% more than it was last year. All programs have been fully funded with a 3.87% COLA. The entire education budget received a 3.87% COLA.

Community Colleges received a 5% funding increase. The CSU and UC system both received a 6.5% increase. There is $250 million to offset school energy increase costs, and we got $200 for low performing schools. There is plenty of money for salary increases, not like last year, but raises nonetheless.

Bob Bennett of School Services was quoted in the Los Angeles Times on in July as saying, "Districts gave too large of salary increases last year, and this year districts will have to make budget cuts."

Hogwash! Last year California public schools received 40% of the largest state budget in California history! On top of that, on May 9th, 2000, CTA negotiated an additional $1.84 billion, an additional 11%.

The districts are going to get that same amount of money this year, plus 5% and a 3.87% COLA. And you deserve a raise, make no mistake about that!

On June 13, 2001 the S.F. Chronicle reported on a study that told us that U.S. teachers earn 30% less than teachers in other industrialized countries.

The story went on to say that American teachers teach about 30% more actual classroom instruction time than do teachers in other industrialized nations.

That isn't bad enough, the Education Statistics Quarterly, Volume 3, Issue 2, Summer 2001, from the United States Department of Education reported that California has one administrator, coordinator, supervisor for every 13.9 teachers, librarians, counselors.

This same report tells us that the entire State of California only has 1,379 librarians and 6,074 counselors for 6.2 million kids. You do the math.

To add insult to absurd educational budget priorities, California has 2.2 administrative support staff for every single California administrator. That 52, 543 administrative support staff for 21,071 administrators! A rip off of the worst kind!

California now ranks 49th in class size in the nation. We are now number 49, just slightly ahead of Utah.

California has a student teacher ratio of 21 kids per teacher for 6.2 million kids compared to number two Texas who has 3.9 million students and a student teacher ratio of 14.9, and New York has 2.8 million students and a student teacher ratio of 14.3.

California now ranks 38th in funding at $1000.00 per child per year below the national average.

California just passing France to become the 5th largest economy on earth producing goods and services in excess of $1.3 trillion.

To bring California up to the national average, we would have to increase educational funding by $5.5 billion next year.

The U.S. leads the industrialized world in child poverty. Twenty percent of America's children are poor. And California and New York lead America in child poverty with almost 26% of our children living in poverty. The U.S. Government defines poverty as an annual income for a family of four of $16,000.

The Associated Press reported that the California Budget Project found that to maintain a modest living standard in California in 2001 is $52,034.

Everyone knows that poverty is a major impediment to a child being successful in school.

Secretary of Education Rod Paige was in Long Beach on September 18th. After the N.Y. disaster, he is out and about beating up on the public schools.

He was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying "We have spent $147 billion on federal programs since the Johnson administration, why is it . . . that 70% of our inner city and rural fourth graders can't read."

$147 billion spread over thirty-three years, averaging 40 million students per year, works out to be $111.00 per child per year.

Well Mr. Secretary, most of these kids that can't read are poor and English language learners and America does not meet its responsibility to these poor children.

Mr. Secretary, the U.S. is the richest of the 16 industrialized countries of the world but we rank 11th in per capita educational spending.

Mr. Secretary, I can tell you that additionally these children can't read because teachers have been told what, when, where and how to teach. It hasn't worked. Now you want to blame them.

In the same article, Donald N. Langenberg, Physicist and Chancellor of the University of Maryland said, "The real solution lies with winning the hearts and minds of teachers."

He talks like we could do it if we wanted to but we have just decided not to do a good job. And now someone has to show us how to do a good job and convince teachers to do a good job and then we will.

In the midst of this educational crisis, there is a growing teacher shortage. A June 2001 N.Y. Times article said, "In the first three to five years, 50% of urban teachers leave teaching." "Nearly 10% of new teachers quit before they have time to memorize the seating chart."

The article concluded by saying that "The nation will need two million new teachers in the next decade."

The Academic Performance Index was devised by the legislature as one of Governor Davis' educational reforms. California schools are ranked from the top 10% to the bottom 10%.

CTA had an outside research firm analyze the API scores and compared the top 10% to the bottom 10%. What we found was shocking.

Eighty-six percent of kids in the bottom 10% of schools were poor compared to 7% in the top 10%. Forty-six percent of kids in the bottom 10% of schools were English language learners compared to 2.6% in the top 10%. Forty-one percent of the bottom 10% of schools were year-round schools, compared to 1.3% of the top 10%.

Ninety-six percent of kids in the bottom 10% of API schools were ethnic minority compared to 34% in the top 10% in a state that has 67% of all 6.2 million kids are ethnic minority.

The national fourth grade reading scores tell the same story nationally. On April 10, 2001, the National Assessment of Educational Progress released their fourth grade reading test scores. When analyzed, the results show that .37% of America's fourth graders read "below basic".

Below basic kids cannot understand even in a general sense the meaning of what they have read. In short, then cannot read.

The national results of this test are pretty much the same as the API scores in California. Sixty percent of poor children read below basic. Sixty-three percent of African American kids read below basic. Fifty-eight percent of Latino children read below basic. Forty-seven percent of urban students read below basic.

As I said, California has the largest class size in the nation. We do have a cap of 20 in K through 3. What effect does class size reduction have on learning and test scores?

Vital Search, an independent research firm, studied 20,000 LAUSD students in smaller classes.

They released their finding on April 14, 2001. What they found was scores were higher in smaller classes, particularly math and language arts. The positive effects were greatest in low achieving, year-round schools with large enrollments of poor Hispanic students.

Small class size impact on test scores in these low achieving schools was double that of more affluent schools.

So where does that leave us?

California has the largest public school system in the U.S. with 6.2 million kids. The U.S. has 47.2 million students in the K-12 system with a $647 billion budget. Number two is Texas with 3.9 million students, and number three is New York with 2.8 million students.

California ranks 49th in class size in the United States.

Twenty-six percent of our kids live below the poverty line. 1.4 million of our kids are English language learners.

California is the richest state in the union, yet we fund our public schools 12% below the national average. California will need 300,000 new teachers in the next decade. Fifty percent of new urban teachers and 30% of all new teachers quit within five years. California has one administrator for every 13.9 teachers, counselors, and librarians.

California has 2.2 administrative support staff for every one administrator.

Anti-public school pundits are advocating vouchers, merit pay, and doing away with teacher due process and seniority rights.

What do we need to do? We have to be more pro-active! We have to go on offense!

We have to stop letting people like Rod Paige, Secretary of Education, the front man for the most regressive, anti-union, anti-teacher administration since Ronald Reagan and maybe ever.

And others like Bill Bennett, Jerry Falwell, Tim Draper and others set the education agenda. We have to organize and fight at the bargaining table. We have to organize and push our legislative agenda. You have proposed legislation before you this afternoon to expand the scope of bargaining. If we are going to be held accountable for the education of our children, and make no mistake about it, we are, then we need to bargain curriculum rather than having it shoved down our throats by some Deputy Superintendent who doesn't have a clue.

We also need to bargain textbook selection. We need to bargain lesson plans, discipline policy, classroom assignments, grade level teaching assignments, anything else that affects our classroom and our ability to teach.

This legislation is going to come as a shock to administrators, school boards, anti-teacher and anti-union groups. But it is past time for us to go on the offensive and dominate the education agenda. We are going to introduce legislation to bring some order to the testing nightmare we now have in California. I will recommend legislation to do away with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

This has turned into the most anti-teacher government department in California. They dream up hoops for teachers to jump through and have endless numbers of credentials that must be constantly renewed at great financial cost to teachers.

They also carry out endless witch hunts against teachers who have been unfairly accused of improper conduct.

We need legislation to give teachers more professional rights, not less! The people now in charge of educational policy are making teaching insufferable and often time impossible. That has got to change. We need to aggressively push our legislative agenda and make things happen. We need to make anti-education forces react to us. We need to make them play defense. It will not happen overnight.

But when 300,000 college graduates spread throughout California, put their minds and will to something, things happen!

Ask Tim Draper and his $31 million Prop. 38 campaign what teachers can do when they decide to move aggressively. Now is the time to move!

Every teacher must be involved in this fight. Together we can do it. We can make positive changes in teaching and public education.

I believe that 300,000 California teachers can do almost anything. Let's go do it.

Thank you very much.