(Oakland, CA) June 13, 2005 – CFT President Mary Bergan today released a statement regarding the Governor's announcement of a special election this fall:

What's most unfortunate about this election is that if you look closely at the merits of the governor's proposals, there is nothing here that would indicate the need for a special election. Although the governor claims he's doing this because the legislature hasn't acted, he hasn't really proposed any serious bills relating to these issues and tried to get them passed.

The supposed goal of his "Live Within Our Means" initiative is to fix the state's budget gap, which everyone agrees it won't do. It will, however, permanently break his promise to adequately fund public education by gutting Prop 98, and severely impact the ability of cities to deliver public safety services to citizens.

His proposal to extend probation for teachers from the current two years to five certainly isn't worthy of the term "education reform." It does nothing to give new teachers the support they need to build their craft, and it does nothing to improve instruction. It merely adds to the real difficulties we face in recruiting teachers to underpaid jobs in an under-funded system.

Although so far he hasn't directly claimed the "paycheck deception" initiative as his own, his political money is mixed in with it, and it's aligned with his ongoing anti-teacher, anti-public employee tantrum. It seems he and his friends want the best democracy money can buy, so long as they're the only ones allowed in the store.

The $80 million it will take to run this attack on teachers, students and schools would be far better invested in our classrooms, public health clinics and fire stations.