July 21 – The California Federation of Teachers (CFT) responded to the announcement of a possible California state budget agreement with dismay.   CFT President Marty Hittelman said, “The priorities are wrong. Massive cuts to all levels of education while, at the same time, preserving unproductive corporate tax breaks, is a blueprint for further California decline.” Hittelman noted that public education, including higher education, was cut $9 billion dollars, on top of $11.6 billion in cuts already made.  He said, “Legislators should do the right thing and reject this budget.”

Click here to send a message to your legislator:  please don't pass this budget.

“The governor and Republicans refuse to provide more state revenues to cover necessary education programs,” said CFT President Marty Hittelman. “Meanwhile, they’ve been busy handing out huge tax breaks to corporations. That is exactly contrary to the people’s view that education spending should be increased. We look forward to giving the people a chance to vote against the tax loopholes punched in the budget for corporations with a ballot measure to repeal them.”

Hittelman noted that tens of thousands of teachers, classroom aides and school support personnel would be lost, in many cases forever. “It will be another great raiding party for other states to recruit our laid-off teachers,” said Hittelman. “Once again, the governor and his Republican colleagues are being penny-wise and dollar-foolish. California invested in preparing most of these teachers, and added a year or more of on-the-job professional development, only to throw these teachers and that investment out the window. These cuts will depress student performance, which has been improving over the past decade. When students lose their teacher, nurse, librarian, bus driver, bilingual classroom aides, or other important parts of the education delivery system, look no further than blind devotion to the Republican ‘no new taxes’ dogma for the reason why.”

Click here to send a message to your legislator:  please don't pass this budget.