Teachers already pay yearly union dues of $570 and now California Teachers Association (CTA) is tacking on another $50 to fight Gov. Arnold’s propositions in the upcoming special election. Since one of the issues they are fighting is such a minor adjustment to their outsized job protections (moving the time to get tenure from 2 years to 5), it will be interesting to hear what they can possibly say against it that won’t offend 99% of the state. Five years to earn life-time job protection is still incredibly generous. How many Independent Sources readers have anything close to that?

We think this is just a sideshow to the primary “education” issue anyway, which is how unions collect and spend member dues. This is no small issue. With over 335,000 members, the CTA can tell (not ask) their people to ante up for political donations and the union can promote whatever causes and candidates they choose with it. It doesn’t matter if a member has views, opinions or perspectives different than the union’s; members can’t opt out of this forced donation policy.

Among other things, the union decides what politicians get their members’ money. If you are a Republican and don’t want your money going to the DNC, well that’s just too bad. The CTA has historically been one of the largest contributors of “soft” money to the DNC. They were big contributors to former Gov. Gray Davis and of course were upset when he was fired in the election that brought Arnold to office (in part because they weren’t able to enjoy the full return on their investment that they spent to get him into office).

It should be noted that the relationship between Davis and the CTA was love/hate. The CTA loved the access to the governor and the ability to buy his positions and Davis loved the union’s deep pockets and squeezed them hard whenever a big bill that affected them was on his desk. Wrote Jim Boren, Editor Page Editor of the Fresno Bee:

“He [Davis] can ask for $1 million from the CTA just before taking a position on a controversial union-backed bill…”

The union thinks that it’s wrong to require the permission of members to take their money and give it to causes and candidates they don’t support. Another argument being floated about by the union is that requiring permission will bog down their decision-making. This from the union with an 800–member governing body.

One thing for certain, both sides will be spinning the press, conducting focus groups, and fine-tuning messages all to figure out which ones resonate with voters. I don’t think the teachers unions will get far with moderate voters until they come up with better ones than I’ve heard so far. In fact, I bet in the end they’ll just label the measures “anti-education” and stay away from specifics. Nice catch-all and totally irrelevant.

In a related but slightly different topic, if you ever wonder why our kids have trouble speaking in anything other than unintelligible youth slang, you might want to hear how their teachers talk themselves. In researching the above I came across this quote given to the LA Times by 12th-grade government teacher Charlie Young. If it is any indication how teachers talk in the classroom then it’s a surprise that our kids can talk at all. Young’s quote regarding the special election:

“Now, it’s like, ‘ OK, bring it on.’”

I wish I was making it up. I’m surprised he didn’t say “Oh, my gosh!” And this guy has, like, tenure.

Independent Sources will be covering the special election with increasing frequency so check back often or subscribe to our RSS feed. In the meantime, you might enjoy some of our previous posts on education.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 17th, 2005 at 7:46 am by Insider and is filed under 2005 Initiatives, California Schemin'. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.