We're in this Together

Since having the honor of becoming your president, I have talked a lot - including many times in this column - about how building strong local chapters builds a strong CTA. That was never more evident than on November 8.

Governor Schwarzenegger's broken promises and his attacks on teachers, nurses and firefighters energized our local chapters, created many new activists, and built a coalition of organizations that will continue to work together to support real reforms, like providing adequate resources to our schools so all children can succeed, providing affordable health care to all Californians, and ensuring that our communities are safe.

Thanks to your hard work, effort, time, and yes, money, California voters joined educators in rejecting the governor's special-interest initiatives that would have hurt our schools and taken this state in the wrong direction.

Thanks to you, the governor will not be allowed to wipe out another $4 billion from the education budget.

Thanks to you, Proposition 98, which guarantees minimum funding to our schools, is still intact and remains the law of California.

Thanks to you, new teachers still only have to serve two years of probation, instead of five.

Thanks to you, teachers still have the right to a hearing before being fired.

And thanks to you, teachers and CTA will continue to have a voice and be able to speak out loudly and proudly for our students and for improving our public schools.

This election proved that by working together, we truly can accomplish anything. CTA members and staff made more than 1.3 million phone calls to voters to lead one of the largest "Get Out The Vote" efforts ever in a California election. We all came together for this effort: teachers, counselors, librarians, social workers, school nurses, education support professionals, college faculty, retired members and CTA staff. Our staff did an incredible job in this campaign. We even had some help from retired staff, NEA staff and staff from other states.

Thank you all for all that you did for our students, our schools and our future.

You are the real heroes of our state.