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State revenues have soared
School districts statewide are trimming spending
The Dublin teachers’ union four-day strike garnered headlines and created headaches across the district.
District officials managed to keep the schools open with administrators and substitute teachers, while the Dublin Teachers Association members paraded in picket lines at entrances around the schools.
The job action drew David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, to its first day. The Weekly story quoted him telling striking teachers at an afternoon rally, “I saw your strike lines today — that is a beautiful thing to see.”
Frankly, I had just the opposite reaction. Teachers are professionals and should act as such. I don’t expect teachers to act like truck drivers or dock workers. One of former Gov. Jerry Brown’s worst decisions was allowing public employees to unionize. Now the state teachers union is one of the two unions spending the most lobbying in Sacramento $3.1 million of members’ dues in 2024 according to CalMatters. Petroleum and timber groups spent more.
Dublin teachers want salary increases, increases in money for health insurance and lower class-sizes. Reporting by the Pleasanton Weekly compared entry level, mid-career and top-level salaries with other county school districts. Dublin ranks 1st or 2nd at each level—pay issue?
The other point of contention, lowering class sizes, sounds great in theory and is important in the early elementary years where fundamental reading and math skills are taught. Once the paradigm shifts from teaching reading to reading to learn, it’s not as important. And, it’s really expensive for a district that already is cutting its budget.
What it does for the state union is potentially create more dues-paying members that maintains its clout in Sacramento. The union has been forthcoming in its goal to line up teachers contracts statewide to increase pressure on local boards and the Legislature.
For the governor and the Legislature, it’s auto pilot because Proposition 98, passed in the depth of the tough budgets in the 1990s, guarantees k-12 education and community colleges about 40% of the state budget. Given how much the budget has soared during Gavin Newsom’s term, about 60% to $327 billion. If it was spent wisely and sparingly, the state and schools should be sitting pretty,
That’s not the case—transitional kindergarten became the requirement—damaging non-profit and for-profit organizations providing preschool. There was no compelling reason for it, other than to add to district teaching ranks and dues paying members for the unions.,
