Where do they find these guys?
CTA is throwing all of their support behind a few guys who are sure to keep lining the pockets of a few CTA members. Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, and Tom Torlakson are all getting significant help from the public employee union. Besides being union puppets, all of them have misguided policies that take from many and benefit few.
As Newsom has said, "whether [I] like it or not" I am a member of CTA. Every chance I get to call out the union for what it is, I do. They have done me no favors and continue to take my dues despite me crying foul and trying to get the automatic deductions stopped.
U.S. unions have out lived their usefulness. It used to be that they protected workers from dangerous and unfair business practice. Their only purpose for existence now is to abuse tax payers. Seriously, what harmful environment do teachers encounter in their classroom that they need a union to save them from? Maybe students need a union to protect them from the CTA, "evil" district management, and political union puppets.
Given the chance, what will Brown, Newsom, and Torlakson do for our children?
During Jerry Brown's last tenure as governor, he ran TWICE for president. Instead of running the state he travelled the country to attend rallies. Brown has a history of office shopping, much like Anaheim's own Harish "Harry" Sidhu. 
Gavin Newsom is a pompous ass simply for his egregious self-serving statements; not so much his message which is clouded by poor judgment but rather his delivery. He has done more as mayor of San Francisco to hurt California than he ever did to help his own city. Between the Prop 8 rhetoric, which I think was a big reason it won, and the sanctuary city policy, Newsom is a public nuisance.Let's take a peek at Torlakson, the termed-out 11th Assembly District Democratic member. All of his support is from either public employee unions or other political hacks. On his website he says, "As State Superintendent of Public Instruction, I will be the leading advocate for restoring and increasing the state's investment in our schools." I take "increasing the state's investment" to mean he wants to throw good money after bad in a state that is ranked number one for per student expenditure. The 2010-2011 budget from the Governor's Office shows a total $118,755,483 for K-12 education. With more than 6,200,000 students enrolled in 2008, we must have spent $19,154.11 on each student per school year. My son's superior private education costs me about $4,000 per year. So where does the other $15,154 go? The numbers vary depending on what fact sheet you use but even the worst estimate places the per-student spending at about $7,500 per year. That's still nearly double what I pay for my son's education. So I ask again, where did the balance of the money go?
The answer is simple: the tax money is burned up on the front end with special programs and bloated administrative budgets. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of commissions and boards that receive funding through California Department of Education with members collecting stipends and travel expense reimbursement. Our own Fullerton High School Principals are paid more than $200,000 per year with their multiple assistants being paid well over $100,000. And I haven't even mentioned all of the those paid symposiums and seminars in Monterey and Palm Springs. It is mind boggling how much waste (and personal profit) there is in education.
In my opinion the education crisis cannot be solved by outsiders trying to "fix" it. I think the change must come from within and be genuine. To that end I believe school vouchers will force those within the broken system to address the problems for fear of a perpetual loss of funding and jobs. It comes down to supply and demand driven by a boycott-like principle. Unfortunately, we have few in Sacramento willing to sign their name to a voucher bill which means vouchers would have to be a ballot box initiative. With CTA's funding, that would be a huge up-hill battle, but one that I would gladly support. 
