The dog ate their homework.

Just-released state test scores show California’s K-12 students are suffering under (what your Marxists would call) the jack boot of totalitarianism. 

“We have unacceptable rates across the board, with a persistent, continuing problem in math,” a state education consultant told EdSource, the media outfit that forced Gov. Gavin Newsom and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond to release results of the state’s Smarter Balanced test. “It existed before the pandemic, and the pandemic’s impact was most acute for those who needed the most help.” 

Newsom and Thurmond tried to bury the state’s test results, initially promising to release them after Election Day. Now that they’re out, a slightly deeper dive suggests the results are worse than the terrible headlines would suggest.

Consider Los Angeles Unified, where the vast majority of kids tested cannot read or do math at grade level. But those scores don’t tell the whole story. Fully 4.4 percent of the district’s students failed to finish enough of the test to earn any score at all. The state does not factor that number into its final, dismal result. 

You’d be right to ascribe this massive, systemic failure to the teachers unions that run our public school system. But they have excuses. Blame “racial, economic and other inequities that have long existed in our public education system,” said Toby Boyd, president of the California Teachers Association. Blame a “worldwide pandemic,” not the fact that his union spread false information about Covid and demanded school closures long after other states opened classrooms for learning. “There may be those who seek to divide and politicize these test scores for their own political gain,” said the man who seeks to divide and politicize. “That would be a mistake.”

The state’s largest district teachers union had a slightly different spin on the test results: don’t blame Boyd’s “worldwide pandemic.” United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) tweeted: “Don't buy into the narrative that COVID-19 is solely responsible for drops in academic performance. It's convenient political cover for inaction. What we're seeing is the result of decades of underinvestment in teacher pay, student resources and school infrastructure.” A convenient narrative, no doubt, but hollow in light of the fact that the state has been boosting school funding for years. 

But here are two inconvenient truths for UTLA:

• LAUSD schools spend “about $26,255 per student — a whopping 69 percent increase from the $15,630 Los Angeles spent per student” in 2019. 

• And though the district’s charter schools operate on lower funding than their union-run counterparts, they dramatically outperformed UTLA-run classrooms. LA charters outscored UTLA-run schools by 10 percentage points in literacy and six percentage points in math. 

The test results are clear: our problem isn’t “inadequate funding,” “COVID,” or “inequality,” though each of these factors ought to be part of the conversation. The problem is a teachers union whose mission is to make money to play in politics. If education actually happens, it’s because good teachers work against the odds.

UTLA clearly doesn’t care. While students were forced out of schools and into remote learning, UTLA was demanding things like defunding the police and single-payer healthcare in order to return to the classroom. In response to concerns over students’ learning loss, UTLA president Cecily Myart-Cruz told Los Angeles Magazine in August of 2021 there was “no such thing.”

“Our kids didn’t lose anything,” Myart-Cruz added. “It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”

The test scores suggest students did not en masse learn “resilience,” “survival” and “critical-thinking skills.” And for those who did, it was despite UTLA’s best efforts. 

We leave you with this image: the union’s own website and social media accounts prominently feature the graphic of an activist screaming into a bullhorn, not a teacher standing in front of a classroom.  

This is what systemic racism looks like. UTLA and teachers unions throughout the state are the aggressors in a war for even more funding — funding they’ll use to turn California’s K-12 public schools into indoctrination camps for the unions’ radical politics. Unfortunately for students, these unions aren’t concerned with winning in the classroom.

Government union money dwarfs corporate influence in California elections

From statewide offices to local races, California’s government unions — not corporations — make or break candidates, and it’s not even close. California’s government unions collect and spend nearly $1.0 billion per year. They donate hundreds of millions every election cycle to political campaigns, and almost every donation is to a Democrat. What follows are examples of the unions' giving power, but it barely touches on the full impact of union largesse.

A CPC analysis of California government unions donating directly to the California Democratic Party through September 24, 2022 reveals how much the biggest players have spent to prop up the Democratic infrastructure: Cal Fire ($330,000), California Federation of Teachers ($235,000), California Professional Firefighters ($478,000), California Association of Electrical Workers ($450,000), California State Council of Laborers ($170,000), California State Council of Service Employees ($605,000), California State Pipe Trades Council ($250,000), California Teachers Association ($845,000), Faculty for Our University’s Future ($178,000), SEIU affiliates ($627,000), Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 104 ($235,000), Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters ($300,000), State Building and Construction Trades Council ($625,000). And that doesn’t include dozens of smaller union contributors. 

Power players like the California Teachers Association dominate California politics. The California Teachers Association Issues PAC has spent $8.2 million in political contributions this election cycle, including $5 million to oppose Prop 30 (wealth tax to subsidize California's electric car mandate) and $250,000 to support Prop 1 (abortion without limits) — both initiatives that have nothing to do with education. CTA also pumped at least $2 million into supporting Prop 28, but at least that makes some sense for CTA’s members since more funding for K-12 arts education means more teachers hired. (What makes less sense is why CTA spent more than double that amount on Prop 30.) 

But that’s not all. Other arms of the CTA political machine also contribute to political campaigns. The CTA Independent Expenditure Committee has spent almost $6.8 million, and the CTA Association for Better Citizenship has made over $3.9 million in donations to campaigns and county Democratic parties. Mike Antonucci reports, “CTA is funding 287 board candidates in 125 school districts” this November and has “dispensed more than $1.8 million for those candidates," with local union affiliates adding millions more as unions continue to report new political expenditures across the state.

Government union influence extends into every city and county, every special district and every school board. There is not one race in California where government unions aren’t interested in the outcome, so long as the successful candidate will then be in a position to “negotiate” over pay and benefits for public employees. 

In October alone, CTA donated $300,000 to State Superintendent of Public Instruction incumbent Tony Thurmond’s campaign, and at least $36,500 to Democratic Central Committees in Riverside, Yolo, Mendocino, Sonoma and San Diego counties. Also in October, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) donated $220,500 to the California Democratic Party and $40,500 to Democratic parties in San Mateo, Fresno, Yolo, Mendocino, San Luis Obispo and Sonoma counties.

When you look at the combined impact of government unions’ spending, it’s easy to see how the unions can — and do — make or break so many campaigns. 

But not everyone understands the depth of government unions’ pockets. That’s why in February, CPC launched @CalUnionWatch, an automated Twitter bot that tracks and publishes government union campaign contributions in real time. The bot has published more than 1,100 union donations this year and is shining a light on how much political influence government unions wield in the Golden State.

If you haven’t yet, go to @CalUnionWatch to see just how much and how often government unions donate. And be sure to read the recent article by CPC senior fellow Edward Ring that breaks down union campaign spending and the chasm between political donations to Democrats and Republicans in California.

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