A fun rally to call attention to education funding

Parents and children plan a rally Tuesday at the Sacramento Capitol to show their frustration with budget cuts and to celebrate "the most important 'special interest' in the world -- our children."

If you are thinking of some people holding signs and walking in a circle, this rally has more in mind. There's a cafeteria-style lunch, music and dancing. A go-round of "Mission: Impossible!" ("Are You Smarter than A Fourth Grader? Can you build a mission out of clean recyclables?") and a performance of "Low Budget High School Musical!"

Among the participants are the Angry Tired Teachers Band from Hayward, the California Autoharp Gathering from Mendota and fiddler Evo Bluestein from Clovis. Read more about the plans from The Times' Steve Lopez here.

-- Mary MacVean

Comments

[bkl]

If children are our most important special interest, why are all the protests about getting more money for teachers and administrators? Unions represent the workers, not the children. This is not a knock on unions; the reason unions exist is to represent workers. The teachers have a union, and the principals have a union. If the children are our most important special interest, then they need their own separate union to protect them from the teachers union and the principals union.

[JM]

I was part of the teacher walk out. I fully supported the union. You are absolutely wrong when you say the teachers are doing this for more money.
In no way were we demending raises. If anything we were fighting to keep our jobs and even fighting a future paycut like we suffered in the 90's. The district is at the moment considering 4 day furloughs. My wife is also a teacher. If you take 4 days pay away from us both this is almost a loss of two weeks actual pay, a huge cut in our pocket book.
We were out on the streets because class sizes could grow as much as 7 to 9 per class. I already have classes that are at 39. 46 or 47 in a classroom is criminal, college classes have less students than this.

There is much more at stake than just teacher raises. (Cut programs, no new textbooks, larger class sizes, loss of nurses, loss of gate coordinators, loss of school police....I could go on and on....)

[Jessica]

You know what? If teachers want more money...I say GIVE IT TO THEM! They are doing one of the most important jobs in the world...educating our future! They are securing our future, our way of life. The youth right now will be determining how comfortable my life is in 50 years. It is my highest hope that they are being educated and shaped by qualified individuals - so we should definitely pay those teachers what they deserve. Those teachers are our liason between now and our future. They deserve so much better.