We want to welcome you to the first State Council of the 2002-03 school year. This year, like the past several, will be crucial to the future of public education. The decisions you make will guide this great association for this year and will impact public education for years to come. Your responsibility is awesome but we know you and we know you are up to it. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication to your students, to your profession and to CTA. You make us strong! Thank you!!

There are several things I want to talk to you about today.

Here at this Council, you are going to hear a lot about the November election. I am not going to belabor that point. I do want to say that the re-election of Gray Davis and all the CTA recommended candidates is crucial. The next few years are going to be hard for public schools. Without our recommended candidates, it will be horrible. Vote your interest and re-elect Gray Davis.

This year, despite a $24 billion deficit, Gray Davis funded education with a 2% COLA, and full funding and a 2% COLA for all programs. The K-14 budget was increased by $3.3 billion dollars. $400 million for instructional materials, $24 million for libraries, $217 million for low performing schools.

That means that teacher salaries can be increased next year. The Los Angeles teachers have already settled with a 3% pay raise and full funding of their medical benefits.

Don't let your district low ball you at the bargaining table. There is money for raises and benefits despite what School Services and Ken Hall say. The state deferred $681 million - this is not a cut. Districts will get the money in August of 2003. Bargaining will be hard, but if you hang in and fight you can win a decent settlement like the L.A. teachers.

This year, CTA will be involved in many legislative battles in Sacramento.

Some of the fights will occur over legislation that will be proposed by the Education Master Plan report to the legislature.

The Master Plan contains some good ideas, but it also contains some bad ideas that CTA will oppose.

Some of the language in the Master Plan is very troubling. It says that collective bargaining agreements need to be "reviewed." There is no doubt in my mind that means there will be a legislative attempt to weaken the teacher collective bargaining law. We have already put the author of the Master Plan report, Senator Dede Alpert, and the legislature on notice of our opposition to any legislation along these lines.

Other Master Plan recommendations that we will oppose are:

Efforts to weaken the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and give more power to the Governor's Secretary of Education.

The Master Plan also recommends that Adult Schools should be moved from K-12 to the Community College system. CTA strongly opposes this recommendation.

We can only win these battles and protect our schools if you are engaged in these struggles with us.

We will keep you informed as legislation concerning the Master Plan evolves.

There is no question there will be another legislative battle over testing and professional rights of teachers. It is time, past time, that we stand up for our professional rights as teachers. And it is time again that we stand up and fight to reform this standardized testing mess we have in California.

The STAR9 test is a norm referenced test.

Fifty percent score in the top half, fifty percent score in the bottom half. This happens no matter what you do.

Fifty percent of students and teachers are losers before the test is even given.

The test is not aligned to curriculum, textbooks, now they say the test is aligned to some of the over 400 academic standards.

400 academic standards are a joke.

Some academics call them "California's wish list" standards.

Twenty-five percent of the students are forced to take the test in a language they don't understand. (1.4 million)

Ten percent of learning disabled special education students are forced to take the test with little or no chance of doing well.

Thirty-five percent of our kids are forced to take an unreliable test with little or no chance of doing well.

Then everyone is shocked that they do poorly and blame teachers and their "failing schools."

When CA analyzed the API scores a couple of years ago, we found 86% of the kids in the bottom 10% of API schools were poor, compared to 7% in the top 10%. 46% of kids in the bottom 10% of API schools were English language learners, compared to 2.6% in the top 10%.

Kids and teachers are forced into a standardized testing situation where you cannot win and then beaten up for not making everyone score at the national average when it is impossible to do so.

You want to know your API scores next year. Give me your zip code and I will give you your scores.

The Orange County Register newspaper reported in August some interesting facts about the STAR9 test. They tell us that:

• Margaret Raymond of Stanford said, "I just don't think the API is accurate."
• David Rogosa of Stanford University and consultant to the State Department of Education revealed on July 3, 2002 that the STAR9 test had a margin of error of 20 points.
• The Register also reported that "predominately white schools win cash awards at about twice the rate of more ethnically diverse schools."
• Professor Thomas Kane of U.C.L.A. and Douglas Staiger of Dartmouth studied the API bonus awards program and concluded it has a "perverse effect on diverse schools."
  
  • Since 64% of California's 6.4 million kids are ethnic minority, this is a serious problem.
• To give you an idea of how valid the Star9 test results are, one school in San Bernardino County raised their test scores by 102 points and teachers won $10,000. The next year their score fell by 105 points.

In 2001, the National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that 37% of American's fourth graders tested "below basic."

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

When those scores were broken down, 60% of poor children read below basic, 58% of Latino children read below basic, 63% of African American children read below basic.

This national test results are almost identical to California's Star9 test results, when you break down the scores along economic and ethnic lines.

October 1st, the Class of 2004 High School Exit Exam results were released. As many of us predicted, the passage rate was dismal. Fifty-two percent of the kids failed the test. But when you break down the results, it tells the same old story!

• 87% of special education students failed the test.
• 72% of African American students failed the test.
• 70% of Hispanic students failed the test.

These three groups make up 62% of California's 6.4 million students.

• 81% of English language learners failed the test.

These kids are not dumb, they are poor, and they need help. Help that the richest state in the richest country in the world is not providing.

The legislative policy makers don't want to talk about child poverty and how it negatively impacts these children's education. If they did they would have to do something about it. They don't want to face up to that problem. Their response is slogans like "Leave No Child Behind" and "All Children Can Learn." Of course all children can learn if you give them the help they need. Slogans, more tests, more teacher accountability is all that they offer. But no real help!

What the API scores and the National Assessment of Educational Progress reveal, is poverty is a major factor in large percentages of America's children who are slipping through the educational cracks.

To blame teachers and public schools for the learning problems of poor and English language learners is unfair and dishonest, yet that is what is being done. Everyone but poor and English learners are doing well in public schools. No one talks about that! It is the same old standard test story. Poor and minority kids do poorly and middle class kids do well.

The United States leads the industrialized world in child poverty!

Thirty three percent of California's K-12 students live in poverty. Poverty is defined as: Family of 4 - $16,700.00. Another 13% live in low income families. (Family of 4 - $29,000.00) 20% of California children live on welfare.

On September 19th, at the Feather River Service Center Council in Yuba City, Dan Bill of the Yuba County Probation Department told me of a family of five, a mother and four children, on welfare that lived on $665.00 a month and paid $450.00 a month rent. There are thousands of kids like this all over this state. These are the kids that need our help.

Ruby Payne, in her book Understanding Poverty, tells us that poor children are much more likely than non-poor children to suffer developmental delay or damage, drop out of high school, give birth during teenage years. A poor inner city child is seven times more likely to be abused or neglected as a middle class child.

Policy Analysts for California Education in May of 2000 reported, "Poor children are two or three years behind their more affluent peers on several measures long before their first year of school."

The Public Policy Institute of California writes, "Much of the variation in test scores among urban, suburban, and rural schools that appears in raw data can be accounted for by variations in student socio-economic status and school finances."

This month, Valerie E. Lee and David Burkam of the University of Michigan, in a study "Inequity at the Starting Gate," write "Children from impoverished families start kindergarten at a tremendous disadvantage. Trailing behind other children in the basic skills that are the foundations for learning, math, reading, and other subjects."

When you combine standardized tests that are dubious at best with poverty level and non-English speaking kids, you get results that only tell you the kids are poor and don't speak English.

Teachers are being beaten up and unreasonable demands are being made to raise test scores when it is virtually impossible to do so.

There will be legislative fights over testing. Last year Jackie Goldberg wrote legislation for CTA to correct most of the problems with the STAR9 test. It was stripped in the Assembly and killed in the Senate Education Committee.

CTA will be back on this issue!

The (ETS) Educational Testing Service is now fighting back with TV commercials. They are fighting hard to maintain their non-profit $225 million contract in California.

Another battle we will be involved in is the implementation of the "Leave No Child Behind" federal legislation.

This is being touted as President Bush's educational reform.

Dr. James Popham, Professor Emeritus at UCLA, said in February of 2002, "This law is setting teachers up for certain failure." "Improvement is set so high that it will be impossible to attain." "This law is set to make teachers look bad, not help kids."

Education Week reported in September of 2002, "The No Child Left Behind law requires every secondary teacher in a Title I program to have a Bachelors Degree in the field they are teaching, or a closely related one."

In 2002-03, 27% of California secondary teachers do not have a major or minor in the field they are teaching.

Right now California and the federal government are fighting over the definition of a highly qualified teacher which is what the federal laws require.

California defined a highly qualified teacher as:

• A person with a Baccalaureate degree
• Passed California's state test of reading, writing, and mathematics
• Demonstration of competence of subject or subjects to be taught
• Orientation to the subject(s) and grade levels to be taught

California Congressman George Miller has criticized this California definition of a highly qualified teacher.

The United States Department of Education said last year that the United States will need 2 million new teachers in the next decade.

EdSource predicted this year that California will need 300,000 new teachers in the next ten years.

Two years ago, California had 30,000 emergency permit teachers. This year we will have 50,000 emergency permit teachers.

Add to this that 30% of all new teachers quit within three years, and 50% of all new teachers quit within 5 years.

Last June, 10,000 California teachers retired. All were fully credentialed with an average of 28 years experience. Who is going to replace them?

The average age of a California teacher is 44.3.

We are running out of teachers and the Leave No Child Behind legislation will make this growing shortage much worse.

CTA will fight these battles and continue to fight for CTA priorities.

Our number one priority is to protect educational funding and work to improve it when the opportunity arises, as we did two years ago with the additional $1.84 billion.

We will continue to fight to maintain class size reduction in K-3 and bring it about in grades 4 through 12.

Class size reduction is under attack by administrators throughout the state, led by James Flemming of Capistrano Unified.

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

EdSource tells us that California class size averages 20.9 to rank 49th in the United States.

That number, 20.9, is the result of dividing number of students by certificated non-supervision personnel.

The U.S. average class size is 16.1 to 1.

• Vermont is 11.8
• Massachusetts is 12.5
• Rhode Island is 12.6

CTA will continue to fight to make sure teachers have affordable health care. We are watching as districts cap teacher's health care costs and today thousands of teachers are forced to pay a portion of their health care costs. Every teacher must have a fully paid quality health care plan.

CTA must continue to bargain hard for teacher salary increases. We must be well paid to attract and retain quality teachers for our classrooms.

Study after study tells us that you the teacher are the single most important factor in a students achievement.

We must continue to work to give teachers professional control of our classrooms.

Many young teachers leave the profession because they have no control over what they do and yet they are being held totally accountable.

Teachers are feeling alienation. One young teacher said, "There is a strong emphasis on scoring high on the SAT9, learning is coincidental. Workbooks, excessive paperwork and documentation and other assessments leave little time for actual teaching.

This low pay and high stress is driving teachers out of public education in record numbers.

Teachers want to share ideas about subject matter.

Teachers want to share views of students and how to relate to them.

Teachers want to seek each other's professional advice.

Teachers want to work together to develop teaching materials and activities.

This is not happening, we must give teachers the professionalism to do the things that they know will improve education for all of our children.

We have to work to make teaching a real profession.

College educated teachers must be given real decision-making control over what goes on in their classrooms.

A Fairbanks poll in California in March of 2000 asked "How important do you believe it is for teachers to have more flexibility to design and deliver programs that best work for students?"

• 30% extremely important
• 42% very important
• 18% somewhat important
• 90% (total)

The public trusts teachers - Gallup poll -

The public believes that teachers should have more professional control of our classrooms - so do we - with your help we will make it happen.

Despite all this turmoil, California teachers are the best. You get the best results under the worst conditions in America. Let me tell you what a great job you do.

That's right, the worst conditions in America. Show me the worst conditions in Mississippi, Arkansas, and I will show you as bad or worse in California.

In California, despite the fact we have the sixth largest economy in the world producing goods and services in excess of 1.3 trillion per year. We just slipped to 6th from 5th!

California only ranks 38th in funding in the United States in 2000-01. We are told California funded each child at $7,930.00. I have yet to visit a district that gets more than $5,500 per student.

The national average was $8,184.
Connecticut funds at $11,516.
New York funds at $11,128.
New Jersey funds at $10,396.
Massachusetts funds at $10,084.

As I told you, California ranks 49th in the U.S. in class size.

Could you imagine what you could do with $11,000 per student? And a class size of 12! As they have in Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island. We would even take the national average of 16.

Let me tell you just how good California teachers are!

All California teachers do with this miserable, unfair testing system.

All California teachers do with inadequate funding.

All California teachers do with virtually the largest class size in the nation.

All California teachers do with the largest percentage of non-English speaking children of any state in the United States.

All California teachers do with the highest percentage of poverty level students in America, 33%.

All California teachers do teaching in these miserable conditions is:

To graduate 87.8% of California seniors in 1999. That is number three in the world behind number one Japan at 90.6%; and number two Germany at 88.9%, but ahead of England, France, Canada and Italy.

All California teachers did in 2000, and for the last ten years, we have sent over 65% of our high school graduates on to college. Forty four percent on to 4 year colleges.

That's number one in the world.

No one sends as many kids to college as the United States.

In 1999-2000, the U.S. had 14.9 million full time college and university students, that's number one in the world, percentage wise and numerically.

Teachers made it possible for those kids to go to college. Without you they would not be there and the U.S. would not be the great country that we are.

In 2000, in the age group 25-29, 33% of Americans had a B.A. or higher. That's number one in the world.

• #2 was Japan with 22.9%
• #3 was Canada with 19.5%
• #4 was England with 14.8%
• #5 was France with 14.0%

Teachers have raised the graduation rate in the United States from fifty percent in 1940 to 87.8% in 2000.

• That ladies and gentlemen is all you do teaching in the worst conditions in America!
• With your hard work and support we have made a lot of progress.

Never forget what Newsweek wrote in October 2000, "Teachers are the heart of the school, the single most important factor in a students success... many studies have shown that kids learn best in schools where teachers feel respected and connected to their colleagues and community."

You are the heart of the best free public education system in the world. You are the backbone of America's public education system.

You make it work at this phenomenal level.

Without you it would fall apart.

Public education is the cornerstone of democracy. We must fight to defend it and make it better. We can do that!

We have made much progress in the past.

With your continued work and support, we will make much more in the future.

In California, millions of kids are depending on us to win the fight for them!

You are the best and you work miracles every day, we know that. Don't ever stop!

Thank you very much and God Bless You All!