Sunday, October 17, 2010

Meg Not Good for Schools

Tuesday night’s gubernatorial debate at Dominican College in San Rafael may have gotten a bit too confrontational for some, but despite the grenades hurled back and forth, Jerry Brown continued to show his support for California educators. That occurred when moderator Tom Brokaw asked Brown about the role of the teachers union in California. Brown responded: “It is a very important role, since they represent, through free elections, hundreds of thousands of teachers in California classrooms. They’re a very strong advocate for more money for schools. And that’s very important, particularly when you have people like Meg Whitman coming around wanting to cut the capital gains tax and put a $5 billion hole, which a certain amount of that will certainly come from schools.”

Check out "Meg for Meg," video.

Election Day Coming

Election Day is less than three weeks away, and we still have a lot of work to do! The outcome of this election will have enormous consequences for educators, students and schools, so I want to encourage you to make sure our members are doing everything we can throughout this state to make sure public education prevails on Election Day. We can’t let up now. In addition to electing Jerry Brown and Tom Torlakson, we must ramp up the effort to save schools from more cuts and layoffs by passing Proposition 24, the Tax Fairness Act. This is CTA’s initiative. We sponsored it and collected enough signatures to put it on the ballot, and now we must continue the work to make sure it passes on November 2. Passing Prop. 24 will ensure that California’s largest corporations continue to pay their fair share. It will help save 22,000 teacher, nurse and firefighter jobs, keep class sizes small, and protect education programs, public safety and other services.

To help you, we have created a new Take Action Page just for Prop. 24. You and your members can help get the word out during this final push:

First and foremost, talk to family and friends about why passing Prop 24 is so important to our schools and communities.

Share CTA’s Yes on 24 webpage with all of your members. There, they can get ideas of how to help using CTA’s social networks, get the latest on Prop. 24, and print and download posters to display and share.

Watch and share the Teachers for 24 video.

Write an Op-Ed or letter to the editor of your local paper and share your thoughts on tax fairness.

Respond online or in a Letter to the Editor to articles and blogs about Prop. 24.

Participate in a Prop. 24 “100 Grand Bar Giveaway” to parents and voters on Halloween.

Vote YES on 24 on your mail-in ballot or at your polling place on Nov 2!

It’s time to give students and educators a break, not big corporations. Let’s all make sure Prop 24 passes on November 2. Thank you for your leadership in this effort.

David A. Sanchez
CTA President