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California Teacher Elections 2014 Up Front SPI

November 4 is our opportunity to elect an ally and defeat a self-appointed reformer

By Joshua Pechthalt, CFT President

The CFT’s priorities in the November 4 General Election are straightforward: Reelect Tom Torlakson Superintendent of Public Instruction, elect Betty Yee for State Controller and pass Propositions 45 and 47.

In the remaining weeks before the election, we need all of our members to get involved with their local unions and their central labor councils. We have to approach this election as if the future of public education depends on it, because it does.

California Teacher Rank & Files

Rank & Files, Sep-Oct 2014

Adam Siegel, UC Davis librarian and grievance steward for Local 2023 was awarded a $12,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to translate a contemporary Russian work of fiction into English. Siegel, a translator of numerous languages, will use the grant to translate Vasilii Golovanov’s The Island: or, A Justification for Meaningless Travels.

California Teacher

CalSTRS contribution rates rise to rebuild pension fund

Union’s full court press succeeds

Three bills on fair accreditation signed into law

Community colleges Legislative action has demonstrated that Gov. Brown and the California Legislature believe that the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges was out of line.

California Teacher

Propositions 45 and 47 protect consumers and communities

Proposition 45 With increasing health insurance costs continuing to burden consumers, Prop. 45 is designed to reduce the pace of premium increases. The measure requires insurance companies to justify rate increases prior to passing additional costs on to consumers and gives the insurance commissioner the power to approve rate increases. A similar system of checks and balances in the auto insurance market has saved consumers billions of dollars.

California Teacher Local Action

Local Wire, Sep-Oct 2014

LOCAL 1603
Protecting the rehire pool
…When administrators at Oakland’s Laney College chose not to rehire part-time sociology professor and Peralta Federation of Teachers Part-time Faculty Representative Cynthia Mahabir, and two other members of the Part-time Faculty Rehire Preference Pool, the faculty rallied quickly.

California Teacher

Betty Yee: The qualified candidate for State Controller

A young Betty Yee worked in her immigrant parents’ laundry and dry cleaning business, where she dealt with customers, and with money.
After graduating from the University of California, Yee held jobs in which she was responsible for analyzing and collecting billions of dollars, including senior fiscal positions for the state Legislature.

California Teacher Elections 2014 SPI

Torlakson has the courage to face false reform efforts
State Superintendent has proven leadership and classroom experience

Her voice swelling with hometown pride, elementary school teacher Melinda Dart says, “Tom Torlakson was a student in our Daly City schools — and he went on to become a teacher and state superintendent of all schools.”

During his early years, Torlakson’s mother worked as a school secretary and his father as a welder. After high school, Torlakson attended San Mateo Community College before entering the Merchant Marine and serving in Vietnam. Upon his return, he earned a bachelor’s degree in history, a master’s degree in education and a teaching credential at UC Berkeley.

California Teacher accreditation ACCJC

Faculty protest class cancellations caused by ACCJC sanctions
Two lawsuits and a trial move forward; governor signs CFT transparency bill

The trial to determine if the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges acted unfairly when it pulled City College of San Francisco’s accreditation will go ahead on October 27. In the meantime, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera won a victory when the trial judge ruled on September 19 that accreditors “violated controlling federal regulations” by having an unbalanced evaluation team, with only one academic representative to evaluate the college in 2013.

California Teacher Vergara

Education unions fight to reverse Vergara ruling

The CFT and the California Teachers Association filed a notice of appeal asking that Judge Rolf Treu’s ruling in Vergara v. California be reversed in its entirety. Stating that Treu’s decision striking down five California Education Code provisions “is without support in law or fact,” the appeal says Treu’s reversible errors are “too numerous to list.”