California Pension Crisis and Teacher Unions
Teacher union officials’ greed has led some schools to have to extract money from their budgets in order to fund teacher retirements. This action adds to the pile that belies their claims that all for the students. A headline on nea.org this morning: Sacrificing Children for Tax Cuts, Senate GOP Leaders Unveil Health Care Bill. Then there is NEA president Lily Eskelson’s iconic statement from the latest Convention, “We have the power and they know it.”
Check out the article by admin on californiablog.org.
Schools across California are on increasingly shaky financial ground. The state has long been struggling with pension shortfalls in its CalSTRS teacher retirement system. With no viable solution in sight, underfunded pension programs are beginning to dip into school budgets, forcing draconian cuts to those most in need of the extra services that money provides, such as subsidized breakfast and lunch. Experts agree that all is not lost, but the state is quickly running out of time to find an effective solution that will not cause great hardship to the millions of children who rely on public education.