Guffanti's Sour Grapes

I read the article in the San Diego Union Tribune today regarding the magnificient victory of the PRO-public education parents and teachers over Guffanti and his group of ANTIs. You will not be surprised to know that Guffanti left our VUSD board spewing bitterness and nastiness. What else would we expect? A scorpion is a scorpion is a scorpion. Here are his final words to Bruce Lieberman the fair-minded, Union Tribune reporter,

“What I think the voter doesn't understand is the teachers union is not the classroom teacher . . . and that their purpose is not to educate kids,” Guffanti said. “Their (the union) purpose is to get more money for their teachers for less work.”

Isn't Guffanti a lovely man. According to Guffanti all the work we did to save public education from the fringe political agenda of the his group of ANTIs was just for money.

I am retired. I will make a lot more money by saving public education in VUSD. Yeah Guffanti it was all about me getting more money, the six hours I spent on the phone calling more than three hundred VUSD, voters the scores of hours I put in on this blog--all of that was about me making more money. Right! What a jerk!

The parents who supported us by the hundreds will get a lot more money, too. Right Guffanti?

Dr. G has never been gracious in victory, so who would expect him to be gracious in defeat?

He cost our district tens of millions of dollars and years of over crowded schools with his stubborn and purposeless delaying tactics whenever the majority wanted to pass a bond or build a new school. We could have had a new high school in town at least three years ago and perhaps as much as a decade ago if Guffanti had supported building new public schools instead of organizing opposition. So yes, Guffanti your devastating and humiliating defeat was a bit about money. It was about the money YOU WASTED that could have educated our children.

The comments after the UT article are even more revealing about the nasty and hateful ANTI education views of Guffanti and his supporters. Read them below and you will again see why the decent and good folk of this district fought so hard to keep Guffanti and his small gang of malcontents out of power and off our VUSD board.
Here are the Guffanti Gang's ugly and false comments:

1. The teacher's union does not care about quality of education... the teachers union does not care about test scores...the teacher's union does not care about your kids
2. What the teacher's union wants is money. Money for their members, money for their political action committee, money, money, money...........That's it!
3. We keep throwing good money into bad schools, bad because the teachers would rather be the students (sic) buddy than teacher
4. bad schools because these teacher's students cannot pass tests aimed at testing the most basic of knowledge
5. Teachers make more than most of us already. They make more than those of us who work 12-months each year while they work 8-months each year. They have better benefits than most of us; they have better retirement than most of us.
6. the three "winners" of this election will make sure the rest of us are losers with higher taxes so they can pay off their buddies who sponsored them

Guffanti and his gang do not have children in our VUSD schools or any public schools so they have no point of reference. They only hear how evil teachers are. They do not know any. They have never visited our schools or seen our classrooms. Except for passing out campaign literature on campus or barging into a classroom unannounced causing a security alert, can anyone name any other time Guffanti (or Gibson) or any of the other Gang members ever came to any public school any where? NO! All Guffanti and the Gibson Gang can do is hate and spew lies.

Let's take the six lies above that either Guffanti or one of his Gang associates wrote about our good district, wonderful teachers and incredible teacher's union.

1. We do not care about children, right. That is why we take low paying, high work jobs with virtually NO chance of promotion and no chance of advancement. How could someone who was not a caring giving person survive in a classroom full of needy students? The attrition rate for teachers is OVER FIFTY PERCENT in the first five years!** The highest for ANY profession. The attrition rate for peace officers and fire fighters is not as high.
2. The union is about money? Then why did we organize four different times to pass school bonds. We spent time and money trying for twenty years to pass those bonds. Finally we passed Prop O on the FOURTH attempt. When new schools are built in a district, there is never enough bond money and teacher's salaries ALWAYS go down. We accepted the probable loss of pay and still acted as the PRIME MOVERS in getting Prop O passed. Secondly our salaries and benefits have consistently been reduced compared to the San Diego County average over the last 16 years that we have backed school board candidates. With board majorities backed by our union, our salaries went from third highest unified district in the county to second lowest! Our fight for decent school board candidates was always about getting folks who supported PUBLIC EDUCATION and who believed in FACT BASED education especially in science, health, history and sex ed. Guffanti was one of the first members of a nationwide organization dedicated to the DESTRUCTION of PUBLIC EDUCATION. Read the year 2000 NCTimes articles about the organization and Guffanti's involvement here: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2000/10/20/export19941.txt and here: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2000/10/21/export20028.txt and here:http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2000/10/24/export20272.txt
3. Again Guffanti's Gang only reads inaccurate reports about teachers on hate sites. The Gang has no idea what really happens in public schools. Teachers that are "buddies" with their students and do not exert authority do not last in a classroom, not even as a substitute. I wish Guffanti's Gang Associates would try "sub"bing for a few days. It would give them a bit of perspective. But then again learning new ideas in foreign to the Gang.
4. The tests that are given in public schools do not test the most basic of knowledge anymore. I am betting that most of Guffanti's Group could not pass the third grade benchmark test. The math alone would floor them. examples here:
5. No public school teacher now or ever worked only eight months. When I started over thirty years ago it was 9 and 1/2 months. Today it is a full ten months of ten and twelve hour days. Teachers put in more hours over those ten months then eight hour factory workers do in twelve months and we are paid about half as much as high school graduate makes in a factory.
6. The good and noble victors in the VUSD school board race Jaka, Chunka and Lilly CANNOT RAISE TAXES. That is correct. They have NO POWER TO RAISE TAXES. A school board can vote to put a bond measure on a ballot but the state strictly limits the use of the money raised by a bond to the construction related costs. BY LAW BOND MONEY CANNOT BE USED FOR TEACHER SALARIES. Guffanti knows this. He also knows that over 90% of VUSD operating budget comes from the state of California and not from the residents of this district. Prop 13 transferred the cost of running schools from local districts to the state. The only other way to raise money locally for VUSD is to raise developer fees on new home construction. The state of California strictly limits the percentage that can be charged to a VERY LOW amount after successful lobbying by home builders. However it does not matter as there is almost no free land left for development in Vista and if there was a bit of land some where, there is no money for construction loans in this economy.

To read the entire article in the San Diego Union Tribune with the comments that follow go here:http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20081106-9999-1mc6skuls.html

Note that Bruce Lieberman wrote the article for the UT. He is good and fair reporter that many of us remember from the great VUSD Evolution and Recall Wars of 1992-1994. He worked then for a now defunct North County newspaper. (was it the Blade Tribune?) We are glad he landed on his feet at the Union Tribune.

**From the book, "Relentless Pursuit," by Donna Foote.