Thursday, May 08, 2008

Lies of Omission: CTA Sugarcoats Taking Your Money

More good information from California Educator magazine. Here's what we learn on page 31:

State Council took a first look at a proposal that would allow members to contribute $20 a year toward the CTA Foundation and CTA's advocacy efforts on behalf of public education.

If approved by Council, the voluntary contribution would be flexible. CTA members would be able to opt out of the entire $20 contribution; choose to opt out of a portion of the $20 contribution; or choose to allocate the entire $20 contribution to support either advocacy efforts or the CTA Foundation...


Here's what they're not telling you. Three years ago, in an effort to raise a warchest to challenge some initiatives in a special election, CTA temporarily raised dues $6/month, $60/year, for three years. That three years ends this June.

CTA wants to continue getting some of that money, so they're going to keep $20/year of that increase and let the remaining $40/year expire. That additional $20/year will continue to go to their political efforts--unless teachers opt out of it. Notice: they're not going to spend a lot of effort telling you about opting out, and they're not going to get your permission to take that money and spend it on politics. No, they're going to require you to tell them you want to keep your own money, counting on either teachers' lack of knowledge or higher priorities to ensure that most teachers don't opt out.

Is that how professionals act? Or is that how cynical politicians act?

2 comments:

Ellen K said...

So nice of them to "allow" members to "contribute". Isn't that sort of like how taxpayers will be "allowed" to "contribute" to the saving of:
a. the environment
b. the housing (for the economically impaired) crisis
c. the energy crisis
d. the race and/or religion crisis
e. The Crisis to End all Criseses Crisis....
I could go on, but it makes me nauseous.

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