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CTA press release reveals the union’s agenda toward education spending…and its utter disregard of reality.

Last week California Teachers Association president Eric Heins issued a press release that shows the union’s ignorance – or avoidance – of facts. It begins with, “Educators are encouraged to see the Governor use his proposed state budget and revenues generated by Proposition 30 to continue paying back schools from the years of devastating cuts – especially those serving our most at-risk students.”

Hence, we are led to believe that our education spending has declined sharply, especially for at-risk kids. One need not venture far to learn that Heins is, quite simply, full of it. Via EdSource, using California Department of Finance data (H/T Antonucci), we can see the “devastation” graphically:

So over the last five years our education spending – for all kids, at-risk and otherwise – has actually increased about 40 percent. Hmmm. Devastation sure ain’t what it used to be.

Heins then gets to his real agenda, which is campaigning to extend Prop. 30, the “temporary” tax that was passed in 2012. The measure, which jacked up income tax on the wealthy and sales tax on all of us, is due to sunset in 2018. But in a move that has Texas dusting off its welcome mats, CTA is trying to get an initiative on the 2016 ballot that would continue the “temporary” income tax through 2030. (The sales tax increase would expire next year as scheduled, however.)

And just what good has California’s education spending done for us? Courtesy of Cato Institute’s Andrew Coulson, we can see that between 1972 and 2012, our students’ SAT scores have gone down a bit, while our spending (correcting for inflation) has doubled.

And since 2012? According to the latest NAEP (aka the nation’s report card) results released in November 2015, California’s scores are pathetic. The state’s fourth-grade math scores place us at the bottom of the nation, just one point above New Mexico, Alabama and Washington, D.C. In fourth-grade reading, only New Mexico and D.C. fared worse than the Golden State.

Nationally, how does our education spending stack up against other countries? Quite well, according to recently released information by the National Center for Education Statistics, which expanded its biennial Comparative Indicators of Education Report beyond the G-8 to encompass the G-20 countries. In fact, the U.S. ranked #1 in spending. (Page 75.) But our high school graduation rates do not place us within spitting distance of first place. Whereas Germany, South Korea, the United Kingdom and Japan all had rates of 93 percent or more, ours was just 77 percent. (Page 79.) And the graduation rate in California has become something of a joke. Having done away with the high school exit exam, diplomas are now being distributed to anyone who failed the test but completed their coursework, dating back to 2006. Stating the obvious, Los Angeles Daily News’ Thomas Elias writes, “The exit exam’s demise cheapens high school graduation.”

So whatever your metric of choice is – SAT, NAEP or grad rates – our state and country are doing a poor job of educating our young. But we are quite proficient in one area – spending – despite what Eric Heins and other union bosses try to con you into believing. If asked, how much should we spend on education, their dollar amount is $MORE. Please keep this in mind should the Prop. 30 extension make it on to the ballot this November.

Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.