TERMINATOR CAPTURES TEACHERS WITHOUT A FIGHT.

Byline: Ralph E. Shaffer

WITH many of the state's seniors still in shock over AARP's endorsement of a prescription drug benefit that opened the door to privatization of Medicare, another defender of social services has surrendered to a Republican chief executive without a fight.

The California Teachers Association, hardly an organization one would expect would be in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's camp, has agreed to massive cuts in the state's education budget unveiled Friday in exchange for a ``guarantee'' that the money will be restored next year.

Union leaders aren't moviegoers, or they would know that the Terminator doesn't compromise.

This isn't the first time that the CTA has made expensive concessions to opponents of the public school system. Four years ago, in order to get support for a state constitutional amendment that would reduce the vote needed for passage of school bonds, CTA made a pact with the charter school lobby whereby charters would be eligible for limited public funding.

Voters approved the measure, and as a result charters gained access to money that ordinarily would have supported local public schools. Now the charters are seeking an even bigger share of what will soon be a dwindling supply of dollars.

Obviously CTA didn't learn its lesson, for the organization has made an even more damaging bargain with the Schwarzenegger administration. While the governor pretends to be a spokesman for all Californians, his real constituency is that segment which recoils from the public schools in horror, sending their children instead to private institutions, some of which are charter schools. Their only interest in the public neighborhood school is in its cost, which they would dearly love to curtail.

One such step was the abortive Republican plan to reduce kindergarten expenses by delaying the enrollment of 100,000 5-year-olds. They lost, but ironically they have now elected the Kindergarten Cop. He will oversee an even more drastic cut in funds available for the public schools, a cut endorsed by the same teachers union that vigorously denounced the Republican kindergarten plan.

No doubt the CTA has received vague promises that the governor will restore funds at some point in the future. But with the state facing a $15 billion shortfall for fiscal 2004-05 and education the largest single portion of the state budget, our schools will not see that money for years.

The CTA bears a major responsibility for the crisis public education now faces. Not long ago that organization joined with Schwarzenegger to support a ballot proposition to provide money for after-school programs. To most Californians this was the first indication that the actor had any interest in schools or children.

He got good press as the ally of the state's public school teachers. The proposal passed and Schwarzenegger gained stature because of it, but the after-school program remains largely unfunded. Financing it will be yet another drain on the already endangered state school budget.

Just as the rank and file of AARP cried out in dissent when their organization recklessly endorsed the evisceration of Medicare in the guise of reducing the cost of prescription drugs, teachers throughout California need to ask their union leaders how they could so easily join with opponents of our public schools to strip $2 billion from the education budget without blinking.