Posted by Tina
California is officially known as the Golden State but as we all know, it’s often derided as the “Granola State”…filled with nuts…and flakes!
This wasn’t such a big deal back when the granola bowl was filled with a handful of aimless hippies riding the Golden States highways in colorful vans or doobie-smokin’ surfer drop-outs camping out on our coastal beaches. But now?
Now California’s nuts and flakes litter the halls of power in our beautiful state spreading mass dysfunction and destruction wherever they go. They are running our cities into the ground, our state government into permanent crisis mode, our courts over a cliff, and many of our schools into ruin.
The nuts and flakes that have control over the education of our children also have a very powerful union…and state and local politicians in their pockets. Long before the devastating economic collapse delivered its body blow the California Teachers Association (CTA) has been systematically destroying our state.
I attended California schools. My children attended California schools. My grandchildren attend California schools. I had excellent teachers and I have known excellent teachers in my years here in California. It gives me no pleasure to report what the CTA has done to education, with our legislators and leaders, and to the budgeting process in California.
It’s time to talk seriously and honestly about conditions in our state. Let’s look at the reality in California and the significant part that CTA power contributes to the horrible situation in which we find ourselves.
Moody’s announced last week that, in addition to the three major cities that have announced intentions to file for bankruptcy, even more cities will be headed for bankruptcy court. Here’s an excerpt from the AP article onMoody’s announcement:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — One of the nation’s top credit rating agencies said Friday that it expects more municipal bankruptcies and defaults in California, the nation’s largest issuer of municipal bonds.
Moody’s Investors Service said in a report that the growing fiscal distress in many California cities was putting bondholders at risk.
Why are bondholders at risk? Because the powerful teachers union does not want to change their gold plated pension and benefit perks. Bankrupting benefits packages are being challenged in court over what some are calling, “illegitimate” CTA negotiations, but it is unclear whether California taxpayers and bond holders or the union will win the fight:
Bond insurers National Public Finance Guarantee Corp and Assured Guaranty Ltd have challenged Stockton’s eligibility to file bankruptcy based on a lack of good faith bargaining. The case is City of Stockton, California, debtor, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of California, Case No. 12-32118.
Self-serving city officials cut the original pension benefit deals without protecting the interests of the bondholders or insurance companies who were not allowed at the bargaining table. What lack of good faith bargaining means in political terms is lack of “consent of the governed” — or more precisely, the non-consent of bond investors, insurers and property taxpayers.
Another term for the non-consent of the governed is “illegitimate” political power. The political problem of California’s one-sided public pension system is that it is illegitimate. This problem is not isolated to public pension systems in California, but also to water rate increases, affordable housing, cap and trade emissions trading and post-redevelopment programs. The entire government apparatus has grown to be illegitimate.
The powerful California Teachers Association has been negotiating in bad faith for decades.
The CTA operates at the state level exerting political power to win expensive salaries and perks for educators but it lends its massive support machine in support of other budget breaking issues as well. Back in the eighties the CTA conspired to solidify their power and make certain California’s budget guaranteed future fundingfor them at 40% of the budget:
CTA’s influence, unlike that of other interests, is written directly into California’s Constitution. More than two decades ago, the group drafted an initiative to guarantee public schools at least 40% of the general fund and waged a successful multimillion-dollar campaign for it. As author and defender of that law, the union established a firm grip on the largest chunk of the budget.
CTA has since used its institutionalized clout, deep pockets and mass membership largely to protect the status quo. The union’s positions often align with those of the smaller California Federation of Teachers, but its resources are unmatched. CTA has ferociously guarded a set of hard-won tenure rules and seniority protections, repeatedly beating back attempts by education groups to overturn those measures, increase teacher accountability and introduce private-school vouchers.
It has thwarted the agendas of governors and even President Obama, whose administration has tried and failed to enlist California in its effort to make sweeping changes in the country’s education system.
At odds with former Gov. Gray Davis over education policy in 2003, CTA’s lobbyist casually suggested a recall election to Republican operative Sal Russo, a conversation that helped fuel the first ouster of a California governor — the first Democrat to hold the post in 16 years — and the election of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.
When the actor-turned-governor vowed to break CTA’s stranglehold on the Legislature, the union derailed his plans. His political scalp hangs in the fifth-floor conference room of the union’s Sacramento headquarters: a framed parody of Schwarzenegger as “True Liar” (a play on one of his movie titles) complete with a Pinocchio nose.
I hope you will read the entire L. A. Times article to get a firm grasp on the scope and power of this union and its self-serving, greedy protectionist racket.
Reality fails to intrude into the nutty-flakey space of the progressive elitist mind but it intrudes like a knife into the minds and lives of California parents, citizens, and taxpayers.
Reality sinks the hopes and dreams of citizens that have lost jobs and business owners with failing businesses.
Reality pushes many citizens and business owners out of the state.
Reality colors the daily lives of citizens who watch their property values fall and their neighborhoods deteriorate.
Reality burns like a laser when parents read that their children’s prospects for a good education are diminishing even as the teachers union continues its stranglehold in the political arena.
Reality intrudes into our lives, but when will we begin to hold our legislators accountable for their complicity and failures? when will we tire of politicians that keep making the same stupid deals, the same stupid choices, the same flaky, nutty decisions year…after year…after year? When will we finally do something to save our beautiful state son we can all work to make her golden once again?
Here at Post Scripts we begin with a conversation; we begin by revealing simple truths and realities in our state and we ask you to consider and comment:
Sales taxes revenues are down in the state by 33.5% .
The unemployment figures for California hover at around 10.7%.
Property tax revenues are down due to foreclosures and distressed property values.
Our state encourages welfare dependency. California has 12% of the U.S. population but carries one third of the welfare burden.
Illegal immigration, the high cost of prisons (Another union for another day), and budgetary problems have come together to cause the release of prisoners back into our cities that are already struggling with welfare and employment troubles.
Our legislators are doing everything wrong if their intention is to keep and attract business and jobs to the state, put Californians back to work, increase the tax base, and make California thrive.
California is right on track to becoming the first formerly great state to officially cut its own throat. Is it time for the big send off…California R.I.P.?
“I attended California schools. My children attended California schools. My grandchildren attend California schools. I had excellent teachers and I have known excellent teachers in my years here in California.”
… “but heaven forfend they should be paid like professionals or that state schools should be adequately funded … especially if this should come about at the behest of a (shudder) labor union.”
I have just reduced the entire rest of Tina’s post to a single premise, which don’t make no sense at all. Well, it would, if you wanted to live in Somalia, but I don’t.
Libby: “but heaven forfend they should be paid like professionals or that state schools should be adequately funded…”
I am in favor of paying teachers well. I’m in favor of merit pay or paying teachers bonuses for good performance. I am in favor of having the best possible schools in EVERY district. I am willing to pay for it too. But I expect a good result for my dollars. I expect schools to be appreciated by students and their parents and I expect to see California in the top five in the world.
I am not in favor of paying for retirement benefits that exceed the average professional persons retirement benefit in the private sector. If teachers want big fancy pension plans they should fund them themselves. In fact privately funded pensions would eliminate a lot of problems for the state and the taxpayer.
“…especially if this should come about at the behest of a (shudder) labor union.”
Union leaders conspiring with legislators and negotiating against the taxpayer, since the taxpayer has no one to speak for him at the bargaining table, amounts to racketeering. Teachers union representatives have no business RAIDING (embezzling; extorting) taxpayer’s of their future earnings by making deals the state can’t possibly keep without bankrupting the state and/or imposing confiscatory taxes. IT’S AT THE VERY LEAST IRRESPONSIBLE!!!!!
I’m also not in favor of big bureaucratic administrators and school boards or paying professors that don’t teach. A lot of money that should be spent on educating and preparing students for adulthood gets spent on bureaucratic nonsense and the lovely extra perks the overly paid bureaucratic big shots award themselves.
Most of the teachers support the party and the union that has so badly managed our tax money. Their union leaders and representatives have done them, taxpayers, and most importantly our kids, a great disservice. I think its time more of them got on board with conservatives to put an end to the scheming.
Shame on them and shame on you Libby for being so stupid as to think (and say) that anyone on the right isn’t interested in education just because we expect better from the people that manage our money and teach our kids.
You can toot your own little horn all day long Libby…the only thing you reduced is your own credibility!