Not content with destroying public education in California, the teachers unions and their allies at the California School Boards Association (CSBA) are kicking off their campaign to impose their nuttiness on school districts across America.
CSBA, the organization behind some of California’s most out-there education initiatives, announced it’s splitting from the national group that helped promote the “parents are terrorists” campaign.
In a low-profile statement, CSBA says its leadership approved the divorce from the National School Boards Association on March 26. The state group said, “CSBA has been steadily increasing its presence in D.C. to compensate for the growing ineffectiveness of NSBA and allow for more robust and more direct advocacy on federal matters.”
Long-simmering tensions between the two organizations seemed to ease when CSBA and NSBA simultaneously published demands that state and federal leaders intervene immediately to target as terrorists parents of public school students. Parents had turned out for school board meetings, frustrated by school closures and radical curriculum in public schools.
Parent frustration turned to anger when U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said he would deploy the FBI in local school districts. But that instance of fellow feeling between the state and national only masked the California group’s sense that the national association will never be woke enough for California’s sensibilities.
Within weeks, CSBA president Susan Heredia said her group will carry out “our first Coast2Coast lobbying trip, scheduled for late April, where school trustees, superintendents and other education leaders will travel to the nation’s capital to advocate for California-specific legislative priorities.”
Reasonable people in the other 49 states who believe the insanity of West Coast progressives is at least somewhat contained within California’s borders are in for a rude awakening. What happens in California doesn’t stay in California.
Read CPC president Will Swaim’s full article here.
No Surprise: The California Democratic Party is the largest recipient of California unions’ millions in Q1
CPC’s California Union Watch has been tracking government union political contributions this year, and has just released its reportfor the first quarter of 2022. No shocker here: The top recipient of the five largest California union contributors is — you guessed it — the California Democratic Party.
Here’s the breakdown of the Top 5 largest government union contributors so far this year, what they’ve donated during Q1, and how much they’ve donated to the California Democratic Party:
Read the full California Union Watch report here and follow @CalUnionWatch on Twitter for real-time alerts.
California firefighters unions should back fire prevention, not progressives
California’s firefighters unions have long used their hefty political clout to cut sweetheart pay deals for their members, but as CPC co-founder Edward Ring explains, the state of California would be much better served if the union threw its weight behind fire prevention.
Instead, like other government unions in the state, the firefighters union is firmly entrenched in progressive politics, such as marching with teachers unions and joining progressive groups in endorsing 2020’s failed Prop. 15, the Tax on Commercial and Industrial Properties.
But what if rather than paying a full-time firefighter working for a California city an average of $256,000, firefighters received compensation based on market rates? For starters, there would be more money to hire more firefighters. There would also be more money to spend on programs to prevent wildfires, instead of spending billions to extinguish fires.
What if instead of high-fiving Gov. Newsom for his wildfire response plans, the California Professional Firefighters union pushed proven fire-prevention strategies like partnering with the logging industry to restore responsible logging? What if the union used their power to stand up to environmental lobbyists who for decades have undermined responsible forest management and allowed California’s forests to turn into tinder boxes?
If the firefighters unions took a public stand that advocated for wildfire prevention, California might be able to solve the problem of super fires within a few years, says Ring. Then again, like all government unions, the firefighters’ bottom line is not about fixing a problem, but buying political influence. Their main objective is to help elect politicians who return the favor when it comes time to “negotiate” new union contracts.
“New math scores show California 8th graders testing at the level of 5th graders. This is what Gavin Newsom calls a ‘model for the nation.’” — CA Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin)
Charter School’s Success Irks Progressives: Parent Union Director Rebecca Holz shares why CPC’s popular charter school, the Orange County Classical Academy, has progressives sweating.
CPC and allies in the news
Ditching College: Larry Sand, president of California Teachers Empowerment Network, explains why not everyone has to go to an institution of “higher learning.”
