Thousands Expected For Education Rally

Los Angeles - Thousands of teachers, school workers, students and parents are expected to descend on downtown Los Angeles today to take part in a "state of emergency" rally calling on the state Legislature to maintain funding for education.

The rally at Pershing Square will culminate a week of protests spearheaded by the California Teachers Association. The protests began Monday in Sacramento with a rally at the state Capitol.

Simultaneous rallies are planned today in Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and San Bernardino.

"The message is being sent loud and clear to lawmakers from all over the state -- stop these cuts, extend current tax rates and stop decimating our schools and other essential services," CTA Vice President-elect Eric Heins said.

Gov. Jerry Brown has been trying to win Republican support for an election to extend a series of tax increases to avoid what he has described as the devastating impacts of an all-cuts budget. Teachers' union officials have said the cuts would slash $4 billion in state funding to education.

Republicans in Sacramento have opposed the idea, and that lack of support scuttled Brown's plan to hold a special election next month to put the issue to voters.

Brown is scheduled to release an updated budget proposal Monday, in part reflecting tax revenues exceeding projections by $2.5 billion.

Assembly Minority Leader Connie Conway, R-Tulare, wrote a letter to Brown this week saying she and other Republicans hoped his revised budget would protect education funding.

"There is no doubt that difficult choices will have to be made, but budgets are about priorities," Conway wrote. "By making our students a top priority, we can protect classroom spending without increasing the overall tax burden on hard-working Californians.

"... It is simply unnecessary if we use this recent windfall in tax receipts to spare our classrooms from deep cuts and prevent teachers from living in fear of additional layoffs."

Hundreds of unionized Los Angeles Unified School District teachers are expected to take part in the downtown rally. LAUSD will hold a shortened day of school so the teachers can attend.

United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy said there have been rumblings that some students may walk out of class to coincide with the day of protest. He issued a statement telling teachers they "cannot encourage or condone such activity, as it could put our students in harm's way."

"Having said that, we in no way want to dampen the ardor of our students, their parents or the community in their desire to step up and participate in actions and activities in pursuit of preserving public education and the jobs of their hard-working teachers and health and human services
professionals," Duffy said.