Q: Mirror, mirror on the wall – who is the most hypocritical group of all?
A: The California Teachers Association, of course.
The California Teachers Association (CTA) has just launched television ads attacking Governor Schwarzenegger for his proposal to suspend the Proposition 98 spending guarantee on education. Let’s remember that education consumes the largest portion of the state’s general fund, which is out of what by like 25%. Of course you have to cut funding to education if you don’t have it.
But the CTA running this ad is total hypocracy because the public employee union is not about "better education" — hardly. The goals of the CTA, like all public employee unions, are two-fold: (1) Increase the salary and benefits for its members, and (2) Increase its membership. The CTA upset about potential cuts because the tough fiscal situation may lead to cuts in salary and benefits for their members, and potentially layoffs for teachers.
But this is a situation where the members of the CTA need only look in the mirror in this current situation. The union has supported a public employee pension system with benefits so lavish that the system is collapsing on itself. If you look at the vast increases in contributions that are having to be made by school districts to cover these retirement costs (and they aren’t paying nearly enough into the system), you can see why larger cuts, and suspension of Prop. 98 are a certainty.
Check out the ad from this gutsy union that uses the education of children as "props" to support an education system that fails those very children.