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March 09, 2005
More Reasoned Debate on Education
Don Perata is California Senate President Pro Tem, a liberal's liberal, and the recipient of $27,000 in campaign donations from the California Teachers Association PAC, according to Mike Antonucci at the Education Intelligence Agency (emphasis mine):
So why is Perata the target of 50,000 CTA mailers, 18 newspaper ads and a number of giant yard signs? Because in a moment of candor he told the Los Angeles Daily News that Proposition 98, the state's school funding initiative that guarantees schools about 40 percent of the budget, is "an escalator without pause. Some people say you need more revenues, but I'm operating in a world of reality."
Ooops. CTA doesn't want Perata operating in a world of reality, the union wants him operating in the surreal world of California public education, where increases are cuts, and the highest paid teachers in the country are underpaid. "It wasn't so much that he said it, as who he said it to – to the governor and to reporters," CTA President Barbara Kerr explained to San Francisco Chronicle reporters Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross. "He forgot to say it to us so we could talk about it."
And certainly it would have been more cost-effective to threaten Perata in private than have to spend media bucks to send a public message. But look at the bright side, Ms. Kerr. Now CTA doesn't have to threaten each legislative Democrat individually. A brick through Perata's window sends the proper message to all involved.
Perata, however, is unapologetic. "People don't cower in that situation," he said. "They get angry."
The collaboration of the university colleges of education with the teacher's unions has resulted in a perfect storm of resistance to reform: "progressive" ideology in college combined with the job protection racket of the unions, particularly their leadership bureaucracies.
"For the children's sake" is used as an excuse for all kinds of government regulation--except when it really is for the children.
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