Phony Teachers Group opposes 1A-1F

Editor Note written days after this was originally posted: I have now seen the commercial in question three times. The two organizations are real. One is the second largest teachers union in California--the American Federation of Teachers, the other is an association representing the faculty at California State Universities. In this case the ads are not some phony front group as I had earlier guessed. Read more about the two teachers group that oppose 1A and 1B on my blog at: http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/ click on: Some legitimate teacher groups oppose Prop 1A

The rest of this blog post is apparently wrong. There seems to be no phony teacher's group created just to oppose the passage of 1A and 1B. I will highlight the original post in red. I leave it up because our ANTI friends have often used the tactic of a phony group made up to oppose something they do no like. Move Foward America to try to mock and dilute the power of MoveOn.org., The Center for Consumer Freedom, a group funded by restaurants and food companies to oppose common sense health regulations, Competitive Enterprise Institute to promote oil and coal company pollution agendas and on and on. We should always be suspecious of organizations even with nice sounding names as too often now a days, they have been create to advance goals that harm average Americans and benefit a wealthy few.

My three apparently incorrect paragraphs are highlighted in red below, The references to the articles following are correct and the rest of the blog entry are correct as well.

Two close relatives have told me that they have seen ads on TV by some organization calling itself the American Faculty of Teachers. I googled the group and could not find it. The ads say that teachers oppose 1A through 1F. Yeah, right. We teachers really want the state to go from 15 billion in debt to twenty three billion if the propositions do not pass.

This commercial is of course made by a state wide group of ANTI-public education folks with funding from wealthy extremists who view FACT based public education as a danger to their prejudges and factually challenged worldview.

The ads are phony. Do not be fooled. Instead be outraged.

Call CTA San Marcos office and offer to help make phone calls to support 1A - 1F. The phone number of CTA San Marcos office is 760-744-4108

Time is running out. There will be massive education cuts (even more than we will have to have anyway) if 1A through 1F do not pass. Tens of thousands of teachers will laid off at minimum. Probably the school year will be cut by a week or two with salaries taken down as a percentage of those days divided by 180 school days times our teacher salaries. The consequences of failure of 1A through 1F will be the most catastrophic to schools since Prop 13 passed forty years ago.

Of course our ANTI friends say dire predictions are all phony, but in this case the dire warnings are real and imminent. The scale of the massive debt is so great that even if prison guard, state government worker and CHP person is laid off, the savings for the state are barely half of what will be needed to balance the budget (according to the LA Times). See:

Twenty three billion is truly a massive colossal number that will hurt us all in the state far more than a small tax increase would.

Read more at the following URLs:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap13-2009apr13,0,3757188.column?page=2

From the Los Angeles Times
CAPITOL JOURNAL
Sharing the state's fiscal pain


Polls show voter skepticism about the measures.

But if they're rejected, the electorate had better be prepared for sharper cuts in other social services, as well as schools. There's already a projected $8-billion deficit for the next fiscal year. If Props. 1D and 1E fail, the hole will get nearly $1 billion deeper.

Most likely to be rejected is Prop. 1C, which would allow the state to borrow $5 billion against future lottery winnings. If the three props go down, the hole grows to $14 billion.

Another tax hike seems improbable.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-california-budget-crisis8-2009may08,0,7342537.story

From the Los Angeles Times

California could be broke by July, state official warns

Despite the budget fix enacted in February, the state is on track to come up $23 billion short of what it needs to get through the year, the Legislature's chief budget analyst says.
By Evan Halper and Eric Bailey

10:26 PM PDT, May 7, 2009