San Francisco teachers protest budget cuts

Hundreds of demonstrators rallied in front of San Francisco City Hall on Tuesday, Feb 3, to protest the budget cuts proposed by California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Demonstrators gather around City Hall to protest planned cuts to the state budget, San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 3.

To address the state’s $42 billion budget deficit—primarily a product of the capitalist economic crisis—the governor’s proposal makes deep cuts into education spending. California schools, already 46th among the 50 states in per-pupil spending, are facing the prospect of losing $10 billion in funding this year alone, according to state Superintendent Jack O’Connell.

Closing the corporate tax loopholes and increasing taxes on the rich would be effective solutions to the deficit. Quite predictably, these options are not being considered. The rich much prefer to dump the cost of their crisis on the backs of workers than pay for it themselves.

If approved, the budget cuts to education will result in larger class sizes as well as layoffs for thousands of teachers, school librarians, nurses and other workers. Teachers in different cities across California are taking action to fight the cuts.

Teachers, parents and students demanded appropriate funding of schools with placards reading “Fund Schools, not War” and “Close Prisons, Not Schools.” An elementary school student held a sign reading: “I should be carrying my backpack, not your banks.”