— Previously we mentioned the attempt by the teachers’ union to control curriculum by making it part of their collective bargaining agreement; here’s another bill aimed at increasing teacher power and harming educational quality, from the Sacramento Bee, about the only place in this state that actually covers the legislature:
California’s largest teachers union is pushing to dismantle the state’s system for testing students, ranking schools and enforcing accountability — linchpins in the multibillion-dollar academic reforms of recent years.
Legislation sponsored by the California Teachers Association would create a new state testing program, controlled by teachers, and would kill plans to require high school students to pass an exit examination before receiving a diploma.
AB 2347 marks a frontal assault on the policies of Gov. Gray Davis, who recently announced his opposition to the CTA’s attempt to expand collective bargaining to include academic issues, such as textbook selection.
This bill provides further evidence of the union’s toxic agenda.
If you can’t beat ’em, legislate them out of existence.
The CTU’s have helped to push thru a bill forcing all private schools to pay their teachers hourly if the teachers have not been certified by the state of CA; thus creating potential bankrupting overtime for many of the private schools in CA, which is precisely what the bill was intended to accomplish.
Apparently, if you haven’t been certified by the State, you aren’t considered a professional, not quite equal to CA public school teachers. (Can you hear the dripping sarcasm in my voice?)
Anyone compared the SAT scores between public and private schools lately? Anyone had a look at the CBEST recently? A drunk monkey on acid could pass it.
Relying on certification by the state of CA in 2003 as an indicator of teaching competence is like relying on the word of a Soviet commissar in 1987 that the Soviet economy is (was?) doing just great.
Anyone who remain in that pest hole of a state deserves everything that’s coming to them.
Signed,
A teacher with an MS *not* teaching in CA