Props 1a and 1b are a loss for education

I am a teacher who is against Props 1a and 1b - not because I think the schools don't need more money (they need every dollar they can get), but because I think that the money is already there if the legislature would decide to prioritize education over other pet projects and boondoggles.

The legislature screwed teachers (and students) in their latest budget, and are holding our jobs and the future of our students hostage in their demands for more tax increases. This is pure terrorism.

Now that the California Teachers Association (CTA) Issues PAC is funding ads supporting Props 1A and 1B, it is interesting to listen to the ads and what they do, and DON"T promise.

The ad I keep hearing has two people talking about how important it is to pass Props 1A and 1B so that the state government will have more money and - "when the economy improves" - some of it will be spent to alleviate some of the cuts made to education, and re-hire some of the teachers who got lay-off notices this spring.

In other words, the CTA has decided to fund advertising for propositions that DON'T GUARANTEE FULL EDUCATIONAL FUNDING. So the CTA are the lackeys of the legislators who can't pass a valid budget, and who don't care enough about education to fund it. The CTA is placing teachers fully in the line of fire for those who are angry about tax increases, and at the same time not getting a solid guarantee that the money will go to schools.

Thanks CTA, way to screw your own members over. Why won't the CTA actually represent teachers and start fighting for the legislature to prioritize education funding, rather than using teachers and students as hostages for more tax increases.

Somehow, our legislators were able to find a way to pay themselves during the months when the budget was not being passed, but they can't seem to figure out how to prioritize spending for educating the children of this state to ensure that we have trainable workers and literate voters in the future.

I am disturbed that the California state legislature believes that education is not important enough for them to prioritize it when creating a budget, but do think it's important enough to Californians that the people will vote to increase their own taxes to pay for it.

I am even more disturbed that we are allowing the legislators to use us to do their dirty work for them - to go out and give them political cover for these tax hikes - with no actual guarantees that we will be fully funded.