National Affiliation
CTA is affiliated with the nearly 3.2 million-member National Education Association (NEA), the largest professional association in the country.
Local Affiliates
More than 1,100 chapters or local teachers associations are chartered as CTA affiliates. There is a chapter in almost every school district in the state.
Two CTA chapters are unique in that they are "statewide" affiliates: The Community College Association (CCA), which represents CTA members in 71 of the state's two-year institutions of higher learning; and the California Faculty Association (CFA), which is the bargaining agent for professors in the California State University System.
Membership
CTA is the largest organization of working men and women professional employees in California. It enrolls and is made up of more than 340,000 members, the vast majority of them active, dues-paying educators. CTA and its chapters represent nearly 95 percent of the state's public school teachers and other non-supervisory, certificated personnel.
CTA Staff
CTA employs more than 500 people. Its staff is headed by an executive director. Since 1995 that position has been held by Carolyn Doggett. She began her career teaching first grade at Brookside Elementary School in Willits, California. She taught for 12 years in Alaska, where she was twice president of the Anchorage Education Association and twice president of NEA-Alaska, the state association affiliate of the National Education Association. Before coming to CTA, she was executive director of the United Educators of San Francisco.
The largest portion of CTA staff employees serve chapters and members directly, and are stationed in or near the school districts in which those members work. The Association maintains 27 field offices throughout the state; each is supervised by one of four regional managers.
CTA headquarters, in Burlingame, houses its administrative units as well as departments that provide communications, human rights, instruction and professional development, legal (teachers' rights), research and negotiations, and organizational development services. The governmental relations office is in Sacramento.
Achievements
One of CTA's proudest achievements is Proposition 98. Approved by voters in 1988, Proposition 98 guarantees that schools and community colleges receive a minimum amount (approximately 40 percent) of revenue from state taxes and local property taxes.
CTA has vigorously defended Prop. 98. At the height of California's economic recession - in 1992 and again in 1993 - the governor and legislature decided to call portions of Prop. 98 school revenues "loans" with repayment due in future years. CTA objected and sued the state in CTA v. Gould. CTA won the lawsuit in the biggest school funding victory ever scored against a state government. This victory not only cemented a significant legal issue, it resulted in schools getting $540 million more in 1996-97 and millions more every year in the foreseeable future.
CTA was also the driving force behind class-size reduction. For more than a decade, CTA has lobbied hard for class-size reduction. In 1996, CTA's advertising campaign aired for 30 days in every television market in California. The ads, which featured real teachers, parents, and students, drove home the message: "More teachers, smaller classes." CTA spent $2.3 million on that campaign and made class-size a "hot button" political issue. The legislature appropriated $770 million to reduce K-3 class sizes from 30 students to 20, and kicked in another $200 million for portable classrooms. As a result, nearly 95 percent of the state's school districts managed to launch a class-size reduction program in kindergarten through 12th grade.
In 2005, CTA won a historic victory for students, public schools and CTA members by defeating several initiatives on the governor's special election ballot.
When the governor attacked teachers and our association in his State of the State address in January, CTA responded. After announcing his intention to break his promise to repay the money he borrowed from the education the year before and his plan to destroy the public employee retirement system, CTA joined a broad coalition of teachers, firefighters, nurses, public safety officers, parents, public employees and all education groups to form the Alliance for a Better California.
With CTA members taking the lead in the Alliance, we defeated the governor's special election initiatives that would have:
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Cut school funding and destroyed the minimum school funding guarantees of Proposition 98
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Given the governor's extraordinary powers over the state budget to make school cuts in the middle of the year -- without consulting anyone.
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Destroyed teacher dues process rights by allowing districts to fire teachers during the first five years without any reason.
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Silenced the voices of teachers, education support professionals
Through an aggressive organizing and media campaign, CTA members made the difference in this election, making more that 1,000,000 phone calls to voters.
CTA has been the predominant force for improving both the quality of education and the well being of educators in California. CTA led efforts to:
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Create free and integrated public schools and institute compulsory attendance laws.
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Outlaw child labor and enact other legal protections for children.
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Establish community colleges, the University of California, and the California State University System.
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Devise and implement plans for educational reform and improvement.
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Create a pension plan: the State Teachers Retirement System.
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Protect academic freedom with the "continuing contract" system that affords due process to teachers in their employment.
