Add The California Post on Google Some years ago, a reporter joined me in Sacramento to talk about California’s public schools.
As we walked down 10th Street, we passed the governmental relations offices of the California Teachers Association (CTA).
The reporter laughed. Given the CTA’s enormous influence over California politics, he said, he had expected something more imposing.
I pointed across the street toward the State Capitol.
“That’s the real estate they own,” I told him.
You cannot understand California education policy without understanding the raw political power of the institutions that make their living from the system.
California calls it a “public education system.” I have come to see it as a “public works system” — an enormous governmental enterprise organized around paychecks, pensions, contracts, bureaucracies and political power, while the people with the least power are the children sitting behind the desks.
My mother had a sixth-grade level of education; I understood that education is the key to the American Dream. That realization forged my commitment to fight on behalf of kids trapped in failing schools.
When people ask, “But why did you walk away from the Democrat Party?”, the main reason I give is that I saw the cowardice of Democrats in failing to confront their donors and a system that traps too many low-income and minority children in schools that serve the adults, not the kids.\
Teachers themselves are not the enemy. I respect teachers’ right to organize and advocate for better pay, working conditions, and classrooms. Teaching is difficult, essential work.
But respecting teachers is not the same thing as surrendering education policy to a political organization representing adults employed by the system.
With millions to spend on lobbying California government, the CTA pushes legislators to pass bills that, overwhelmingly, oppose school choice and parent rights. The union’s political involvement extends far beyond collective bargaining. Its political committees support candidates and ballot measures, and its policy activity has ranged across taxes, school funding, bonds, tenure protection, and other major questions of education policy.
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The CTA’s 300,000 members pay an average of $1,000 in yearly dues. Approximately 98% of campaign contributions from their war chest go to Democrats; 1.6% to Republicans.
But where is the equivalent political power for the child who cannot read?
California’s latest statewide assessment results should make that question impossible to ignore.
The most recent data available reveal that only 48.8% of California students met or exceeded the state standard in reading; in math, just 37.3%. The results are substantially lower for Latino and black students.
Despite the glaring academic failures, students continue to be pushed through the system like a bad colonoscopy, and over 80% of all students graduate. Schools still collect their funding. But in any other business, those school “leaders” would be fired and their businesses restructured or shut down.
California needs reliable ways to determine whether students have mastered algebra, can analyze difficult texts, and are prepared for college-level work. Grade inflation is rampant. I am proud to have joined with several thousand University of California faculty who have, finally, and in fear of being called “racist,” demanded a return of the SAT or some form of objective metric of college preparedness.
Yet, the Democrats march on, year after year, like obedient sheep paying homage to their shepherd. And those who dare stand up to the system become fewer and fewer. The child pays the price, but all Californians suffer.
Parents deserve transparent academic standards. They deserve honest information about whether their children can actually read, write, and perform mathematics at grade level. And students deserve a system willing to put their academic success ahead of every institution that profits, politically or economically, from maintaining the status quo. Parents deserve school choice.
The central principle should be simple: Public education exists for children.
Teachers matter enormously. Administrators matter. Unions have a legitimate responsibility to represent their members. School boards and elected officials have important roles.
But the purpose of the system should not be simply to preserve the system. It exists to educate the child.
And, I would add, by any means necessary: whether through traditional district, magnet, or charter schools; in private schools; or even through homeschooling.
Parents should be empowered to be the architects of their own child’s educational futures. Not Sacramento politicians hoping to “fail up” to their next political perches by remaining silent.
For too long, Sacramento’s education debates have revolved around what adults are owed. As I campaign today to become California’s lieutenant governor, with a focus on education, I carry the dreams of my mother in my heart.
The real question is: Are we willing to topple the power structure that stands between California’s kids and the American Dream?
Gloria Romero is a Republican and a candidate for lieutenant governor in the Nov. 3 election.
