Note to Daviswiki editors, I am saving this knowing that the footnotes are not yet in the format of a wiki. Right now I do not have time to do that although I do plan to. Feel free to do that. The references are here. Thanks and best of luck, MG
25 Teachers' Salaries is the name of a grassroots campaign for public school funding started in Davis in July, 2010. It will be statewide and eventually nationwide.
The goal of this campaign is to build a massive nationwide movement working in local government to persuade the state legislatures to pass a Resolution. The Resolution asks Congress to pass a bill (that organizers of the campaign wrote) called America's Weapons Rebate to Education Act (AWREA). 1
This bill will re-allocate a percentage of the Department of Defense weapons budget to the states for hiring K - 12 teachers and other educators. We estimate that the cost nationwide of hiring 100,000 educators would be $6 billion. That number of educators may be low but it is in the ballpark. The goal of AWREA is to replace or rehire the teachers and other educators who were laid off in the last 4 years. The average cost to the school districts nationwide is estimated to be $60,000 per educator.
By comparison the DOD budget this year is over $700 billion.2
All of this is happening 21 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Our current enemy, terrorism, has no army, no navy, and no air force. The campaign believes that America can afford a fully funded public school system and the necessary military if we manage our money right, but that this is not being done.
In fact the financial statements of the Department of Defense have not been audited since 2001. 3
In Washington D.C. there is awareness of the need to reduce military spending, even from within the Pentagon.
At a Pentagon press conference on August 9, 2010, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called for a “fundamental change in culture and attitude across our Defense institutions” and added, “The culture of endless money that has taken hold must be replaced by a culture of savings and restraint”, 4
The Resolution, the bill (AWREA), the petition and other information are on the website: http://25teacherssalaries.org/
Hundreds of people in Davis have signed the petition (also available on that website) including dozens of teachers.
Organizers of the campaign have presented a proposal to "trade bombs for teachers" to 9 school boards in Northern California (Davis, Sac City, Benicia, Elk Grove, Natomas, Folsom-Cordova, Vacaville, San Juan, and Dixon and are building cooperative relationship with 5 teachers unions.
The weekend of February 4-6 is the California Teachers Association (CTA) State Council conference in L.A.
http://www.cta.org/Professional-Development/Events/Events-Index/2011/02/CTA-State-Council.aspx
CTA is the largest union in California with 325,000 members strong.
Several of the CTA Committees have jurisdiction over the subject matter of the 25 Teachers' Salaries proposal including Budget, Financing Public Education, and State Legislation.
5
Two State Council representatives who support the 25 Teachers' Salaries campaign will begin the process of making this proposal a new business item. This will probably take a couple of conferences to occur, but organizers of the campaign hope that CTA will endorse the campaign this year.
Footnotes
1. http://25teacherssalaries.org/?page_id=90
2. http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=13281
3. http://www.dodig.mil/audit/reports/fy10/10-002.pdf pages 1-2
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrvMCUhZ8do
5. http://www.cta.org/About-CTA/Leadership/Committees.aspx
