SACRAMENTO, CA - The California Teachers Association (CTA) is incredibly rich and powerful, and with that wealth and power comes arrogance -- the arrogance of the schoolyard bully who cannot stand to be challenged. Truth is always the enemy of the bully, which is why the bully expends so much time and effort to eliminate dissent based on truth.

Bullies love to brag about their muscle-flexing exploits. Bragging makes them appear more powerful and warns their enemies not to risk their wrath. I was recently the target of that wrath, but first a bit of background.

The State legislature has created a joint legislative committee to come up with an education master plan for California. Various experts have been invited to testify before the committee. Because of its influence among key legislators, the CTA has a great deal of influence over who gets to testify. Exactly how much influence? Try veto power.

On February 2, CTA president Wayne Johnson gave a speech to his union’s state council. In that speech, he boasted: “Lance Izumi, of the very conservative Pacific Research Institute, a pro-voucher group, was invited to testify. We got that stopped.”

The CTA adheres to the Brezhnev doctrine, which in essence says that the tiniest dissent must be beaten down because it threatens the whole. Truth ultimately undermined the powerful Soviet Union and it will ultimately undermine the CTA as well. Johnson and the CTA were likely afraid that I might discuss, for example, research showing that collective bargaining adversely affects student achievement; how union-negotiated seniority rights protect incompetent teachers; the need for merit pay based on student achievement and individual teacher performance; or how school choice in Florida has forced that state’s public schools to improve.

In order to prevent the airing of these and other uncomfortable truths, the CTA resorted to ham-fisted political-pressure tactics which, sadly, worked. Legislators did not get to hear and debate a full range of ideas. CTA prevented them from hearing ideas the union doesn’t like, however beneficial they might be to California students.

I am not alone in commenting on the CTA’s recent eruption of arrogance. Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Weintraub recently interviewed Wayne Johnson about CTA- sponsored legislation that would allow the union to bargain over curriculum, standards, and other education policies. Weintraub observed that negotiations between unions and school districts take place behind closed doors, effectively barring participation of parents who have the greatest stake in the outcome of such negotiations. Johnson sniffed that parents might be consulted on the side, “if they have some qualifications.” Weintraub branded Johnson’s position “outrageous” and said that “his views reflect the arrogance of a union that believes that experts know all and that parents and the community are best seen and not heard.” Johnson, concluded Weintraub, “seems to be forgetting that in the public schools, teachers may be the labor, but parents are the management.”

No wonder the CTA continues to be the poster boy for school choice. The huge union fears an open airing of ideas because, for all their money and power, most of their ideas are unpopular, deficient, or wrong. By advancing parental choice, local control, high standards and increased accountability, the Pacific Research Institute and I intend to give them good reason to be afraid.