The Orange County Register published this response from CTA President Dean Vogel to an earlier column by former Sen. Gloria Romero:
Protecting our teachers
DAVIS, Dean Vogel, president, California Teachers Association: Former state Sen. Gloria Romero’s column questioning the California Teachers Association’s motivations for “suddenly” supporting a new teacher dismissal bill was short on facts and long on inaccurate speculation ["CTA goes Hollywood on teacher dismissal bills," Opinion, April 2]. The CTA wanted to support legislation by Sen. Alex Padilla last year [SB1530], and offered amendments we believed would correct some significant problems with his bill.
Far from jumping late onto any dismissal bandwagon, CTA has led support of efforts to expedite the dismissal process, maintain existing safeguards that remove teachers from classrooms immediately when charged with serious offenses and toughen penalties for districts and school personnel who fail to follow mandated abuse-reporting procedures. These are the facts, despite any claims from paid spokespersons for organizations founded and funded in part by outspoken, school-privatization proponents and hedge-fund managers who see dollar signs in public-school funding.
We are pleased now that Sen. Padilla has teamed with Assembly Member Joan Buchanan to craft just such legislation, AB1338 and AB375, bills that, while not perfect, eliminate the problematic potential for added expense and redundant hearings inherent in the earlier bill. CTA has taken an interim-support position on these new bills and will, in all likelihood, issue our final support later this month, coupled with our insistence that districts must be held accountable for following these laws.
We understand that some so-called “reform” groups will oppose any legislation supported by the teachers’ union. So, we applaud California lawmakers who are moving ahead with bills that keep children safe and streamline the process for removing people who don’t belong in our classrooms, while still maintaining safeguards against false allegations.
We hope Romero is also supportive of these goals.
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