Contact: Mike Myslinski at 650-552-5324
Governor’s Proposed Budget Cuts Billions from Public Schools and Decimates Minimum School Funding Law

CTA President Says Students Didn’t Create Budget Crisis

January 10, 2008

BURLINGAME – David A. Sanchez, president of the 340,000-member California Teachers Association, issued this statement on the governor’s proposed state budget released today:

“The governor’s proposed budget is a giant step backwards for our students. It’s disappointing and ironic that in the proclaimed ‘year of education’ the governor is talking about cutting billions from our public schools and decimating our minimum school funding law. Our students didn’t create this budget crisis and their education shouldn’t be ransomed to solve it.

“While it is clear there are extraordinary budget challenges, it’s also clear that California voters believe our students and public schools should be a top priority and strongly support our minimum school funding guarantee, Proposition 98. Any structural budget reforms must protect Prop. 98, as well as provide the stable funding our students and schools deserve. Voters passed Prop. 98 almost 20 years ago to create stable minimum funding for our public schools. And they strongly reaffirmed their support for the minimum funding law in 2005.

“True leadership means setting priorities and it means implementing a balanced approach of spending cuts and revenue increases to close the $14 billion budget hole.

“The governor’s proposed midyear and across-the-board education cuts would be devastating. A 10 percent across-the-board cut means nearly $5 billion less for our public schools. That’s the same as laying off up to 110,000 teachers, shutting down every school in the state more than a month early, or increasing the number of students in every classroom by 37 percent. We can’t keep asking our students, teachers and schools to do more with less.”

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