Something in the heart of every American loves a protest, a
march, shoulder to shoulder, man the ramparts, truth and justice,
amen. So I read with interest the Dispatch article of May 16, with
its beautiful full-color pictures of marchers and protesters
wearing shirts and carrying signs emblazoned SOS: Save Our
Schools.
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Something in the heart of every American loves a protest, a march, shoulder to shoulder, man the ramparts, truth and justice, amen. So I read with interest the Dispatch article of May 16, with its beautiful full-color pictures of marchers and protesters wearing shirts and carrying signs emblazoned SOS: Save Our Schools. 
It seems that on Wednesday, May 14, dozens of Gilroy public school teachers and students marched in the streets in the 100-plus degree heat wave, celebrating California’s Day of the Teacher by raising public awareness about state cuts to education. The bystanders interviewed by the Dispatch were uniformly sympathetic, so the awareness-raising seems to have worked. 
The article went on to reiterate what every awake Californian surely knows by now: the state is facing a severe budget deficit of $17 billion. Education is the number one expenditure in the state. The teachers, organized by the California Teachers Association, were protesting the cuts to education budgets: $4.8 billion worth of cuts in California, $4 million in Gilroy alone. Make cuts elsewhere, the teachers union says. 
Buried on page A10, we learn that Gov. Schwarzenegger is actually boosting education spending by $1.8 billion in the 2008-09 fiscal year.  Gilroy Teacher Association president Michelle Nelson is not mollified, as the $1.8 billion increase is not enough to provide for growth or cost-of-living-adjustments for school district personnel salaries. She says, ominously, that the $1.8 billion increase, which she refers to as a $4.8 billion cut, could result in cuts to the classroom. 
It may seem strange that a $1.8 billion increase is being called a $4.8 billion cut. I have come to expect that sort of definition, or redefinition, from public employee unions. It no longer surprises me. I think what the CTA means is that they expected a $6.6 billion increase. But the state, thanks to over-spending, did not save any money in our last boom. Now the state is facing a $17 billion deficit, and school spending is the biggest line item in the state budget.
The Governator, prizing education above parks, roads, and mental health, still managed to give a $1.8 billion increase to education. But that falls short of the $6.6 billion expected, so the union is calling it a $4.8 billion cut. When the private sector faces hard times such as these, they make cuts, real cuts.
For example, the company my husband works for faced bankruptcy six years ago during the dotcom bust. They only had 80 percent of what they needed to continue operating. The choice was to lay off employees or to cut everyone’s salary by 20 percent; everyone: company president to the stock room clerk. Every employee voted, secret ballot, on whether to accept salary cuts or lay people off.
Now, it would be reasonable to imagine that the more valuable employees, those with more seniority, those most essential to the running of the company, would vote to keep their salaries whole and lay off the new guys.
But when the ballots were counted, the vote was unanimous for salary cuts. Hard times required sacrifice: the CEO, who is over 70 years old, had to take out a personal loan against his home to get them through the worst of it. But they made it, paid back the CEO’s loan, raised everyone’s salaries back up.
It is debatable as to whether the employees will ever recoup the losses they suffered. But they did not lose their jobs. And the company is still solvent. I call it a win. 
Don’t expect the California Teachers Association to vote, unanimously or otherwise, for a 20 percent pay cut in order to Save Our Schools.
Expect them to demand their anticipated growth and COLA. Expect them to “raise public awareness” and “educate the public” to call a $1.8 billion increase a $4.8 billion cut. Expect them to pass all cuts to the classroom. Expect them to mouth platitudes about it being all for the students. Expect them to complain that anyone who calls for belt-tightening does not care about the children. Expect them to teach their students that teachers are grossly over worked and under paid.
Save Our Salaries is more like it.
