Earlier this week, former state Sen. Gloria Romero published a lengthy article in the San Diego Union-Tribune entitled “Fixing California: The union chokehold.” It described how public sector unions, virtually unopposed, have undermined the effectiveness and overpriced the costs of government at all levels in California.
Romero, a Democrat who served as Senate majority leader, knows what she’s talking about. Her focus is on education, where the teachers’ unions have blocked meaningful reforms for years by protecting bad teachers from being terminated, promoting based on seniority instead of merit, taking over local school boards with hand-picked, union-financed candidates, attacking charter schools, prioritizing teacher compensation and job security over student achievement, and pushing a social agenda in front of academic fundamentals. Romero considers it a civil rights issue, since the negative impact of the union takeover has disproportionately harmed public education in low-income and minority communities.
What Romero discusses publicly — criticizing not only teachers’ unions for undermining public education, but also public safety unions for pricing their services beyond the ability of cities and counties to afford them — is privately echoed by Democratic lawmakers throughout California. And it should come as no surprise that Romero, along with virtually all Democratic lawmakers, places equal if not greater blame on the corrupting influence of corporate special interests in Sacramento.
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