(adopted unanimously by the Delegate Assembly
of the California Council on the Education of Teachers
at the 1998 CCET Fall Conference on October 30, 1998)

WHEREAS Proposition 8 poses serious threats to all educators and to public schools and to children by posing as something it is not; and

WHEREAS Proposition 8 purports to address teacher quality issues by requiring subject-matter testing of all teachers but may, in fact, add unnecessarily to the existing shortages of teachers by eliminating an alternative but equally sound preparation route in the credentialing of new teachers; and

WHEREAS Proposition 8 does not expand or improve the class size reduction program; and

WHEREAS Proposition 8 contains nothing to improve existing law to make our schools safer or more drug-free, but merely removes discretionary powers and common sense decision making of local school officials; and

WHEREAS Proposition 8 threatens statewide academic standards by mandating the 8,000 school site governing councils which can establish their own curricula based on their own standards, with little or no regard to statewide standards and assessments, and with no accountability; and

WHEREAS Proposition 8 discriminates against students, community members, and non-certificated workers by mandating that site governance councils be made up of two-thirds parents and one-third teachers; and

WHEREAS Proposition 8 creates a new, unaccountable bureaucracy, beginning with the new Chief Inspector, a ten-year appointee of the Governor, requiring no educational experience, setting no salary limits, and whose unlimited-budget office undermines the California Department of Education’s capacity to work on issues such as assessment and professional development; and

WHEREAS Proposition 8 removes funds from existing state and local education budgets, including community colleges, in order to train and operate the 8,000 new governing councils and support the unregulated Chief Inspector’s office; and

WHEREAS Proposition 8 threatens the nature of school communities by giving principals the arbitrary power to remove even the best teachers from a school without cause and with the ability to appeal the decision; and

WHEREAS Proposition 8 ties teacher evaluation to student performance on standardized tests in spite of many years of research which shows that there are many factors which contribute to poor student performance on tests, including but not limited to poor facilities, lack of appropriate textbooks and materials, poor instructional leadership, hunger, dysfunctional families; and

WHEREAS many of the provisions of Proposition 8 were brought before the elected state legislature, where they were discussed, debated, and reviewed and were generally turned down or tabled; therefore

BE IT RESOLVED that the California Council on the Education of Teachers join the numerous other education, public interest, and business organizations in opposition to Proposition 8 as a costly and unnecessary amalgamation of policies which lack any basis for creating improvement of student achievement or better schools and schooling in California.