California Teachers Assn

Ralph J. Flynn, 60, executive director of the California Teachers Assn. since 1976. A native of Boston, Flynn taught briefly in Connecticut before beginning his career in teachers unions. He served as executive director of the San Francisco Classroom Teachers Assn. in the 1960s and then worked in Washington, heading the Coalition of Public Employees, an alliance that included the National Education Assn. Flynn joined the California Teachers Assn. in 1975 and was named director a year later.

A conservative organization has joined with a group of California teachers in an effort to overturn laws that allow teacher unions to collect fees from those who don't want to be members. The lawsuit , filed Tuesday in federal court in Santa Ana, targets "agency-shop" rules that apply in about half the states in the country. Under the law, unions can collect from teachers a base fee for services they provide, whether the teachers choose to join the union or not. The law also includes a process by which a union reduces the fees to exclude the cost of political activities from those such as negotiating for wages and benefits.

D. A. "Del" Weber, who recently served as president of the powerful 240,000-member California Teachers Assn., has died at the age of 65. Weber died unexpectedly of unknown causes Wednesday at his home in Huntington Beach. During his tenure as head of the state teachers union from 1991 until last June, Weber led the group's successful opposition to Proposition 174, the controversial school voucher initiative that was trounced at the polls in 1993.

Legislation that would have required more frequent evaluations of educators was killed by a state Senate committee Wednesday under strong opposition from teachers' unions. The bill, by Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), would have required permanent teachers with 10 years experience to undergo performance reviews every three years instead of five. It would also have required school districts to consider parent input in instructor evaluations and set up four rating levels for teachers.

California's education tailspin has been blamed on class sizes, on the property tax restrictions enforced by Proposition 13, on an influx of Spanish-speaking students. But no portrait of the schools' downfall would be complete without mention of the California Teachers Assn., or CTA, arguably the state's most powerful union and a political behemoth that has blocked meaningful education reform, protected failing and even criminal educators, and pushed for pay raises and benefits that have reached unsustainable levels.

Like a diminutive general pumping up her troops before battle, Lois Tinson, the incoming president of the California Teachers Assn., stood at the podium in a hotel ballroom packed with union activists and taunted their opponents. Two years ago, the union had led the charge to defeat school vouchers. Now voucher forces are resurrecting the measure, and Tinson's job is to gird the union for battle again. "We beat you before.

Ham-fisted yet pandering, and fiscally irresponsible too, AB 114 perpetrates an abuse of state power that could wreak budgetary havoc in local school districts. But in that case, why hasn't the news been filled with details of this bad-government bill as it wended its way through the Legislature? Because it was hurriedly and secretively passed, quite literally in the dark of night, with no committee hearings and almost no public notice, and then quickly signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

In California, teachers whose students include English learners are required by state law to have special certification. That's sensible, given the special challenges that come with running a classroom in which not all children are equally proficient in the language being spoken. There are two ways to secure that certification: by graduating from a college or university that grants such a certificate, or by attending a program that educates would-be teachers in that specialty. The teachers certified by the latter route receive what is called an "intern credential.

Interest in teaching is steadily dropping in California, with the number of educators earning a teaching credential dipping by 12% last year -- marking the eighth straight annual decline. The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing reported this month that 16,450 educators earned their credential in 2011-12, compared with 23,320 in 2007-08. The number of students enrolling in teacher preparation programs has also decreased, to 34,838 in 2010-11 from 51,744 in 2006-07. Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Assn., said several factors have made teaching careers less attractive.

On Feb. 24 The Times reported, "The California Teachers Assn. is digging deep to fight an initiative that would limit how unions and others can raise money for political campaigns through paycheck dues deductions." Prop. 226, the Campaign Reform Initiative, does not limit union fund-raising at all. It only requires permission from the union member to take his or her money for political purposes. It looks as if the California Teachers Assn. is afraid to give its membership that power.

Interest in teaching is steadily dropping in California, with the number of educators earning a teaching credential dipping by 12% last year -- marking the eighth straight annual decline. The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing reported this month that 16,450 educators earned their credential in 2011-12, compared with 23,320 in 2007-08. The number of students enrolling in teacher preparation programs has also decreased, to 34,838 in 2010-11 from 51,744 in 2006-07. Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Assn., said several factors have made teaching careers less attractive.

In California, teachers whose students include English learners are required by state law to have special certification. That's sensible, given the special challenges that come with running a classroom in which not all children are equally proficient in the language being spoken. There are two ways to secure that certification: by graduating from a college or university that grants such a certificate, or by attending a program that educates would-be teachers in that specialty. The teachers certified by the latter route receive what is called an "intern credential.

SACRAMENTO - Labor unions are unloading tens of millions of dollars against a ballot measure that could limit their political clout in California, but the spending could come at a cost for one of their biggest allies: Gov. Jerry Brown. The unions are pooling their money to fight Proposition 32, which would eliminate their primary political fundraising tool - paycheck deductions - at the same time Brown is counting on their support for his tax-hike initiative also on the ballot next month.

Re "A Capitol force," Aug. 20 Without doubt the California Teachers Assn. is a big dog in California politics, and The Times does a good job describing the clout the CTA has had over the years. However, the article seems to take at face value the claims by so-called education reformers who criticize the CTA. There is no proof that their ideas - merit pay, value-added assessment, reduced seniority rights and charter schools - will actually improve educational outcomes if only the "big bad union" were cut down to size.

Michael Hiltzik infers in his column Sunday that Proposition 32 is a big lie -- because it prohibits both corporations and labor unions such as the California Teachers Assn. from extracting involuntary political contributions from the paychecks of workers. Hiltzik argues that its prohibition of corporate deductions is of minor impact, but that union political fund-raising will be crippled. He is amazingly untroubled by the fact that taking such payroll deductions for political purposes without consent is patently immoral.

Re "Prop. 32: A wolf in sheep's clothing," Column, Aug. 19 The next time Michael Hiltzik writes about how powerless unions are in California compared to corporations, I suggest that he check his paper's front page. In the same edition of The Times that ran Hiltzik's pro-union column, there was a front-page headline, "A Capitol force. " Were Hiltzik to read the article, he would discover that contrary to being powerless, the state of California and its Democratic-majority Legislature are largely controlled by very powerful unelected forces, namely select public employee unions like the California Teachers Assn.

I find the California Teachers Assn. TV commercial featuring a little girl complaining about budget cuts to be sad. Instead of enlisting support for their opposition to spending cuts, the ad raises the question--"Is it right to exploit children to gain higher salaries when everyone should be doing their share to help balance the budget?" Teachers' unions are greedy. MARY E. DANIEL Port Hueneme

Legislation that would have required more frequent evaluations of educators was killed by a state Senate committee Wednesday under strong opposition from teachers' unions. The bill, by Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), would have required permanent teachers with 10 years experience to undergo performance reviews every three years instead of five. It would also have required school districts to consider parent input in instructor evaluations and set up four rating levels for teachers.

SACRAMENTO - Last year, as Gov. Jerry Brown hammered out final details of the state budget, he huddled around a conference table with three of the most powerful people in state government: the Assembly speaker, the Senate leader - and Joe Nuñez, chief lobbyist for the California Teachers Assn. California was on the edge of fiscal crisis. Negotiations had come down to one sticking point: Brown and the legislators would balance the books by assuming that billions of dollars in extra revenue would materialize, then cut deeply from schools if it didn't.

Every time a proposal to reform the hiring and firing of teachers is put forward in California, it's just as complicated and, in ways, as counterproductive as the current system. Ousting teachers here is ruinously protracted and expensive and, ultimately, nearly impossible. Legislation to fix this regularly fails, in part because the bills aren't well conceived, but mostly because of opposition from the California Teachers Assn. and reluctance by Democratic politicians who rely on the union for support.