San Jose Mercury News: "California Teachers Association: An obstacle to reform"

One of the biggest problems with California's highly-centralized public school system is that the teachers union has much more lobbying presence in Sacramento than the students' parents.

According to this Mercury News editorial, "The CTA has been able to codify obstructive policies into both law and union contracts and has lobbied against other reforms." The Merc goes on to list several harmful CTA-backed policies: a mere two-year period for school administrators to evaluate a new teacher before he or she becomes protected by tenure rules; rigid teacher/student ratios; over-protection of incompetent teachers and refusal to consider merit pay; opposition to charter schools; etc.

"http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/10772374.htm"

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