When they say money should go “to the classrooms,” exactly what do they think they are advocating for? More of the iPad debacle? Additional changes to the curriculum (VERY expensive, with no proof that there are any benefits at all)?
If they want smaller class sizes, which I think is a good idea, that results in more teachers. Naturally, payroll goes up as a result. Do they want to blame the unions for that, too?
As for the step increases, where pay goes up by a very small amount based on number of years of service, they need that to keep experienced teachers in the classroom. There is no way for teachers to move up unless they leave the classroom, so step increases are used to try to keep experienced teachers where they are needed — in the classroom. The teaching profession already has one of the highest attrition rates around, so they have to do whatever they can to keep people from leaving.
Sorry, but the UT has no credibility, whatsoever, where public service and public funding is concerned. Doug Manchester has been one of the biggest recipients of govt largesse. His agenda is to destroy unions so that there is more money left for him and his cronies.
Here is just one of the latest in a long list of transactions where Doug Manchester has benefited at the expense of taxpayers. And I can assure you that he as taken far more from taxpayer than any teacher, firefighter, or cop ever has.
He’s one of the big movers in the privatization movement — those who are NOT taxpayer advocates, but want to create a society where the govt contracts with private corporations that pay their employees peanuts while the well-connected “owners” skim million (or billions) from these often very obscure deals.
————–
According to documents posted online by the state, the California School Finance Authority board will meet this morning at 11 to vote on a loan “not to exceed $37 million” to an entity called Partnership with Parents, LLC, controlled by Classical Academy, Inc., and the associated Classical Academy High Schools, Inc.
The cash would be raised by issuing debt in the form of so-called Charter School Revenue Bonds, both taxable and tax exempt, according to an agency staff report accompanying today’s item. Underwriter RBC Capital Markets LLC would sell the bonds, expected to be rated BB+, in a limited public offering, the report says.
The estimated $2.28 million annual payment for the life of the bonds, maturing in 2043, would come from a combination of public funds, including “block grant and categorical block grant apportionments,” and “a pledge of the gross revenues of the Schools.”
According to financial information included in the report, in 2012 the Classical Academy, Inc. and Classical Academy High School, Inc. operation got more than $5 million in state appropriation, $2.75 million “in lieu of property taxes,” along with federal revenue of $181,157, other state revenue of $888,786, and local revenue of $469,118.
