I think it will be soon out of fashion to quote management gurus, but I think Tom Peters said, "you can't downsize your way to greatness."

I would have supported the teachers. John and Ken do not have to worry about their jobs, the teachers do. How are kids going to learn when there are no teachers to teach. In highschool I had a classroom size of around 35 kids. That is a big class and with teachers getting pink slips it will only get worse. I have seen entire schools get closed down because there is not enough money. John and Ken and their supporters are basically saying we don't care if you get fired to the teachers, we don't care that teachers taught me when I was a child and we don't care that we looked up to teachers when I was young. I would be against John and Ken.

LAO:

"Our updated revenue forecast projects that revenues will fall short of the assumptions in the budget package by $8 billion. Consequently, the Legislature and Governor will need to adopt billions of dollars in additional solutions in the coming months to bring the 2009–10 budget back into balance. Moreover, a number of the adopted solutions—revenue increases and spending reductions—are of a short–term duration. Thus, without corrective actions, the state’s huge operating shortfalls will reappear in future years—growing from $12.6 billion in 2010–11 to $26 billion in 2013–14."

Prop 1A seems to consist chiefly of extending so-called "temporary" (also framed as "surcharge" of late) tax increases even further. As the adage goes, "Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."

Borrowing from reserves, future lottery revenues, and other programs is unsustainable and irresponsible (1C/1D/1E as I recall).

Finally, even if these props pass it looks as if CA will face significant and growing budget deficits over at least the next 5 years.

The propositions won't balance the budget this year or in the foreseeable future.

I most definitely would side with the teachers. People are losing their jobs, and when they lose their jobs they need more services that are payed for with our tax dollars. If they really want to lower taxes, they should be putting their efforts into making sure people can get/keep a job so there won't be so many in need of public, tax-paid services! Lowering taxes won't really do much for us when no one has a job.

I obviously would side with the teachers since it would be in my best interest to do so, as I am planning on becoming a teacher in CA. Giving all the new teachers pink slips is not fair because there is a whole new generation who is trying to get into teaching and there will be a significant amount of people without jobs and who want to get experience but can't get hired.
Yet, it is more complicated than that because I do understand where the conservatives are coming from. A lot of them do have to worry about their jobs, although not in teaching, and who want to have money to care for their families. I do not exactly agree with the way John and Ken went about getting people riled up and aggressive with anti-tax protests and threatening to recall people who support new taxes. Yet I can understand that some of them would be much more happy if they saw the government putting their taxes to good use. However, since the system is so flawed in CA, they see their tax money going to services that aren't working or measures that people randomly voted for but don't want to pay for. It is a difficult situation where no one seems to want to compromise.

I would definitaly side with the teachers since I am planning on being a teacher, but thats not the only reason. I think it is horrible that they are handing out so many pink slips. Teachers help our economy, if there werent any teachers our country would be stupid and people would not have great jobs and get paid the way they do. Children are our future, with the major cuts to teachers our childrens learning will be affected because of the larger class size. Jon and Ken supporters are just looking out for themselves. Without as many teachers their money can be going to different things or they would end up saving money. If this keeps up a second grade class will end up looking like a general psyc class at SDSU.

As a public school graduate, I support the teachers. While I do not support higher taxes, education is one of the most important services the state provides and with the condition of California public schools, we can not afford to cut 30,000 teachers. Cutting this many teachers is going to lead to larger class sizes which is only to cause more problems, especially in lower grades. If children do not fully grasp the basics, they will have difficulty catching up later in large classes. It is important to keep teachers in the class room even if it means taxes going up slightly.

Both issues are pretty important, but I personally would have went out in support of the teachers. The public school system in California is already in a bad place - getting rid of so many teachers can only hurt that even more.

Not only are these teachers already suffering due to the financial crisis, but the children who are already attending overcrowded schools with ridiculous teacher to student ratios are going to reap the worst of it.

Like the commenter above me stated, it's more important to keep teachers in the classroom despite what's happening with taxes. Taxes will always continue to rise and fall, but that effect is only temporary. Depriving students of a great learning environment will impact them for the rest of their lives.

I would have attended the rally in support of teachers. Out of all of the ways we can save money, laying teachers off is probably the most impractical way to do so. We need teachers, our nation needs to be educated, so why them? Classrooms are already extremely packed, making it difficult for a positive learning environment to exist. Rasing the student to teacher ratio is only goin to make this problem worse. The public school system already has enough issues, this will just be another issue that will eventually need to be resolved. Not to mention, we have such a high unemployment rate right now, this is going to have a huge impact on that rate. Regardless of the fact that taxes are rising, we need to keep our teachers before our school systems get even more out of control.

I would have attended the rally in support of the teachers. No matter what happens with our taxes and how they fluctuate, the teachers are the hope for the future. They are key to the education of the young children who will some day run this country. By over crowding and raising the number of students to the number of teachers it will have a negative affect on the students development. I think that with the education problems that already exhist here in California, education should be our number one priority.

I believe in the teachers is more important than taxes. Without teachers children cannot be taught in the school and that's already going to be a downfall in the community, especially with the economy now. Taxes just don't seem as important as teachers losing jobs.