Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s reversal on cutting public school funding and reaching an agreement with the nation’s most influential teachers union, the union will continue airing an attack ad against him until the deal is passed in the legislature.
The California Teacher’s Association (CTA), the state’s powerful progressive teachers union, launched an ad against the liberal governor last week after Newsom proposed slashing funding for public schools by $12 billion over the next few years to narrow the state’s budget shortfall.
“California classrooms face a monumental crisis, tens of billions of dollars in cuts to public education over the next three years, bigger class sizes, thousands of teachers laid off, essential resources like counselors, nurses and special education aides, gone,” the narrator says in the 30-second ad.
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“We agree that we can’t go back to where we were,” the narrator continues. “Tell lawmakers and Gov. Newsom to pass a state budget that protects public schools for our students and communities.”
After Newsom rolled back his initial proposal to education cuts and reached an agreement with the union, CTA president David B. Goldberg later said in a statement: “As always, we will closely monitor any attempt to weaken the constitutional protections behind the Proposition 98 funding guarantee.”
“We will continue to work with the Governor and the Legislature to safeguard constitutionally protected school funding for the 2024-25 budget year and beyond,” he said.
The new agreement between the governor and CTA pledges a more favorable assessment of Proposition 98 – a 1988 law that guarantees a set funding amount for public schools each fiscal year – ensuring schools receive an additional $5.5 billion in the future.
“This agreement is a smart and balanced policy solution that incorporates feedback from California’s educators,” Newsom said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Similar to the proposal in our revised budget, the agreement accomplishes the administration’s primary goals – no cuts to schools in the immediate and long-term future while ensuring budget neutrality. Working together, we are protecting California’s students, families, and educators and putting the state on a fiscally sound and sustainable path.”
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“We have resolved our policy differences with CTA,” a spokesperson for Newsom’s office added.
The ad comes as Newsom proposed a revised budget this month which would have shaved off $150 per student compared to Newsom’s initial budget proposal, as well as sweeping cuts to more than 10,000 open government jobs, an 8% slash to “state operations,” and the state’s progressive climate programs are also getting the boot.
In January, Newsom estimated the shortfall to be $38 billion, even though the Legislative Analyst Office’s (LAO) estimated it would be closer to $45 billion. But Newsom’s revised budget this month, projecting the same as the LAO’s billion-dollar deficit through 2024-25 and an additional $28.4 billion in 2025-26, brought the governor’s revision to the nonpartisan LAO’s estimate to more than $70 billion.
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The agreement underscores the powerful union’s sway in Sacramento as it had threatened to sue Newsom over the proposed cuts. The CTA has been a longtime ally of the Democratic governor, contributing $250,000 to his Yes on Prop 1 committee this year. The union also dished out $1.8 million to Newsom’s anti-recall campaign two years ago.