Daily Archives: March 15, 2009

This past Friday was the day California teachers protested the teacher layoffs in public education. There is a massive budget shortage in the area of education in this state, and one thing the state is doing to solve the shortage is laying off teachers.

This, no doubt, will have large negative effects on the institution. There will be larger class sizes, for one. You can probably think of a few other undesirable consequences.

Teachers, in protest, were supposed to wear pink to school on Friday.  I, however, consciously chose not to.

One teacher asked me, “so do you want teachers to get fired?” Another insinuated, “are you not man enough to wear pink?” He actually was asking another teacher, but I sure wish he would have turned his sights on me. Boy, what I’d liked to have said to that guy…

I chose to not wear pink for a few reasons. For one, I distrust the teachers’ union. I know they can help if you are getting pushed around by admins. A teacher friend of mine is going through that right now and the union reps tried (albeit, unsuccessfully)–or said they tried–to help him out.

Past that, however, I’ve grown to view them with suspicion. I get both the CTA and NEA magazines in my mailbox, and the articles are typically worthless. I look for in-depth analyses of issues, but what I get is propaganda. Forests of straw men and a barrel of loaded language are the diets these magazines typically offer. I tire of manipulation.

Secondly, the whole Proposition 8 deal really soured me too. I pay 115 a month in dues (My union rep informs me that I have no choice in the matter. I cannot opt out. I’ve heard whisperings from other places about being able to opt out and join a more conservative leaning union but to date have not found any information on that. Anyone out there in the know?) only to see the union turn around and use that money to create media campaigns that were simply shameful (to use their own words). They did not deal with the opposition with integrity, and that really rankled me.

If Proposition 8 had “nothing to do with schools or kids,” then why did the California teachers’ union give so much money to the “no on 8″ campaign? It’s a track record like that that makes me suspicious of pretty much anything they do.

Moreover, I don’t have enough knowledge on budgetary issues to be able to give my word to their cause. All I know is that there is somewhere around a 42 billion dollar shortage statewide, and this has led to a range of smaller shortages in most school districts (The predicted deficit in LAUSD, for example, is around $700 million). The shortage has to be solved somehow. It has to come through cuts or raising taxes. California has already raised taxes through the roof. As far as cuts go, they either have to cut people or programs. Either way, its quite a sticky wicket. I’m simply not in the know enough to be able to credibly evaluate the layoff solution. I generally don’t lend myself to causes that I’m woefully ignorant on, and to be knowledgeable, I’d need to do much, much more research than I’m capable of doing.

The biggest reason is that my word is worth something, and I don’t want to be pimping it out to the most passionate buyer. All sorts of people representing all sorts of shady causes can shout, push around, and employ words thick with manipulative meanings (just turn on TBN, you’ll see lots of examples), but that doesn’t mean they are on the side of the truth.

A bunch of passionate people giving me part of the truth is not enough. I feel like I’m not being given the whole story, and that smacks of manipulation, so no thank you, I will not be supporting your cause.

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