NCTimes Editors Trash Teachers and Advocate for Larger Class Sizes

The ANTI-union, ANTI middle class troika at the North County Times are again attacking those who want the best possible education for our children. This time they are highlighting a San Jose Mercury editorial attacking teachers and our determination to give K-3 children the best possible start to their education by keeping class sizes at a maximum of 20.

There will be cuts in education. Of that there is no doubt. ANTI education forces have more than 1/3 of our state legislative seats. Thanks to the worst provision in Prop 13 that requires a 2/3 majority to pass a budget or raise taxes on the wealthy, this ANTI crowd will never allow a budget through that requires their wealthy benefactors to pay what they really should for the services we and they all benefit from. The wealthy only need to buy 1 in 3 legislature in Sacramento to make sure that they never have to pay their fair share of the burden to keep up "the commons"--state roads, infrastructure and education. All very sad.

But why the North County Times editorial staff piles on too, I cannot figure out. How does it benefit them to be so ANTI-union and ANTI middle class? Who will buy their paper, when there are no more people left who have middle class wages in union jobs?

Read the latest ANTI union garbage reprinted in the NCTimes below. Notice the nasty ANTI language used to describe us--"trying to stir up the parents" "harping on". Also note that the term "maximum flexibility" for class size is a neutral sounding term for the absolute end of small class size in K-3.

The ANTIs always use carefully crafted language like "maximum flexibility" to use in their deceptive lies in describing the evisceration of benefits that a state government should give its people. Where do they come up with the it? Oh that's right, they use the unlimited amounts of cash given in campaign bribes by the super rich to hire Madison Avenue type folks to do 'focus groups' so that they can find the most innocuous sounding language to use in hoodwinking John Q. Public.

By the time the parent's find out that 'maximum flexibility' means destruction of class size reduction, their children will be languishing in classes with forty children. No joke.

Soon after Prop 13 passed, I was teaching sixth grade and was assigned 42 students in my classroom with only 34 desks. At the time there were no middle schools with sixth graders. They were all in elementary schools and they stayed in our classrooms all day long. No switching classes. Eight children of my students were forced to sit at large tables with comfortable room for maybe three students.

The room was so crowded there was virtually no space for aisles. Trying to get the students out for fire drill was a real mess.

I did not have a single class set of 42 text books except a more than thirty year old set of health books marked "Discard Los Angeles City Schools." The books were from the early 1950's and the information was hopelessly out of date. Yet that was the only book that every student in my class could have a copy of in his/her desk. My students had to share all the other textbooks during the various instructional times during the day. They had to share their math, spelling reading, language books, etc. Two to a book. For most subjects I had between 20 to 30 class copies of the text. I had one subject with so few books some students had to read it three students to a book. NO books could be taken home at night for homework. That was my teaching situation in 1977-78 school year.

It can get that bad again. There are a group of dark and angry people who have no sympathy for our students. They loathe public education because it provides free and FACT based education. Their children do not go to our FACT based public schools. These are the ANTIs. They lurk in the shadows waiting to again seize power. If the ANTIs have their way, we will soon be back to the funding crisis we found ourselves in during the worse days of low and no school funding following the passage of Prop 13. The NCTimes editors seem to advocate for ANTI positions, who knows why?

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/02/07/opinion/editorials/z09e21d49a022829d882575550065b407.txt

Teachers union off base in fight

The state teachers union is driving an odd stake in the fast-eroding ground of state spending on education. The California Teachers Association is trying to stir up parents by harping on changes to the program that preserves small classes in lower grades. ...K-12 schools face losing billions of dollars. The severity of the proposed cuts is real; however, the distress over the class-size reduction program is misguided.To temper the impact of cuts, (Gov. Arnold) Schwarzenegger is proposing to give school districts maximum flexibility over how they spend $16 billion on designated state programs, which make up about a third of state K-12 money.The $1.3 billion class-size reduction program ... would be among those that could be shifted to the general budget. ...Small classes are popular with parents and teachers for good reason. ... But in many districts, the state subsidy doesn't cover costs. And schools that exceed the 20-student cap by even a fraction of a student over the year face penalties. ...For years, districts have clamored for flexibility. While fighting the magnitude of the cuts that seem likely, this is one change they should welcome.---- San Jose Mercury News