What can be done to save the schools?
| Dear Reader,
The average K-12 starting teacher’s salary in California is $42,000. Thousands of teachers and college and university instructors have been laid off in the last few years. Military spending has grown 8.5% a year for the last decade to $685 billion. A million dollars can buy one $1 million bomb or pay about 25 teachers’ salaries for 1 year. Would you . . . . ? Facing an historic, multi year financial crisis due to reductions in state funding for public education, school districts balance their budgets mostly by cutting expenses, laying off thousands of teachers. As class sizes go up the quality of the education goes down. School districts need a new long term source of revenue. The FY 2011 Department of Defense budget is $685 billion. 1% of that would enable the states to pay for over 100,000 K-12 teachers’ and other educators’ salaries including benefits. The Pentagon will spend over $200 billion on weapons in FY 2011. President Obama’s Commission on Fiscal Reform, the Sustainable Defense Task Force, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have all recommended reductions in defense spending. Doing so would free up billions of dollars for other national priorities including education. Can the United States afford to make a small tradeoff from the weapons budget to pre K through college and university teachers and other educators’ salaries? Can we make this happen through a massive nationwide movement at the state and local levels? We believe the answer to both questions is yes. If you agree, please join us. “Our principal enemy, al Quaeda, has no army, no air force and no navy.” (Sustainable Defense Task Force, June 2010)
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25 Teachers’ Salaries news
January 26, 2012 Secretary of Defense Panetta is trying to backtrack on Congress’ deal to reduce Pentagon spending by $1 trillion in the next ten years. Take Action on this today! December, 2011 25 Teachers’ Salaries plans nationwide survey of education facts and figures October 27, 2011 We talk to the Woodland Board of Trustees about our campaign. October 20, 2011 We talk to the Clark County (Nevada) Board of Trustees about our campaign. September 27, 2011 We talked to the Board of Education of the San Juan Unified School District in Carmichael about our campaign. September 6 and 20, 2011 We talk to the Sacramento County Board of Education about our campaign. August 23, 2011 CTA letter to California legislature July, 2011 July, 2011 June 15, 2011 May 25, 2011 April 16, 2011 Link April 12, 2011 25 Teachers’ Salaries endorses Measure A March 19, 2011 NATO fires 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libya, costing $168 million that could have gone to schools Spring, 2011 Link December 9, 2010 Department of Defense Independent Auditor expresses no opinion on the DOD Financial Statements for FY 2009 and FY 2010 October 24, 2010 July, 2010 American Federation of Teachers adopts resolution against war in Afghanistan
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