Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/458422
Candidate for CTA Secretary-Treasurer Marty Meeden Member, Palmdale Elementary Teachers Association; CTA Board of Directors member. Candidate for CTA Secretary-Treasurer David B. Goldberg Member, Palmdale Elementary Teachers Association; CTA Board of Directors member. For thirty years, I've been part of CTA as a loyal grassroots member and as a local, state, and national leader. I understand and believe in California public education: being a proud graduate of a California community college and a California State University, having worked as an education support professional in LAUSD, and having served my community of the Antelope Valley as a teacher and as a duly-elected school board member. I'll bring to the office of Secretary-Treasurer a unique breadth and depth of experience — and a unique voice. I know California public education from the inside out. As your minority-at-large CTA Board member, I've traveled throughout the state, visiting rural, suburban, and urban chapters, speaking with and listening to you. I know who has the answers to the challenges facing educators today, and I know where to go to get the answers — you! You, our students, and our communities are the ones who have inspired me to seek this office. I understand the fiduciary responsibilities of the Secretary-Treasurer, and I strongly believe that CTA's budget, as a policy document, must honor your dues money by reflecting your priorities. Recently CTA has worked diligently to develop a long-term strategic plan to energize and mobilize all our members. It's an exceptional plan! But its implementation is what will make or break it. As with Common Core, if we want the strategic plan to reach its goals, we — all of us in CTA — must take care and time, listen to each other, remain flexible, and provide the necessary resources for its success. If we want to thrive in the face of court decisions attacking our due process rights as educators and our membership rights as union members, we — all of us in CTA — must stand united and prepared to use our resources to fight the good fight and to remain strong. As your secretary-treasurer, I'll always stay keenly focused on you and those we serve, and I'll always carry out my duties to lead and to manage your dues money both responsibly and responsively. I am your colleague as an activist, an advocate, an organizer, and an optimist. I am both a dreamer and a doer. I prod, I question, I nudge, and I respect. I will be collaborative, inclusive, principled, tenacious, ethical, and transparent as your CTA Secretary- Treasurer. I am Marty Meeden. If only we could just do what we do best……. teach! Instead, attacks by forces opposed to public education and teacher unions make this a really hard time to serve in the public schools. Years of budget shortfalls have impacted our classrooms and our livelihood. Excessive testing strains our relations with our students and our colleagues. Divisive tactics like the Parent Trigger law, the Vergara lawsuit, and attacks on fair share aim to divide us from the communities we serve and try to keep us from acting together to protect our profession. These attacks have had an impact on the fabric holding our profession and public education together. As Secretary Treasurer, my goals will be to weave our work, our profession, and our communities back together. Working with the officer team, the CTA Board and the State Council, I will develop strategies to better connect us and I will target resources to support that work for all members, in all areas. As Treasurer of UTLA for 6 years, I managed a 17 million dollar budget during some of the hardest years of layoffs and declining dues and helped keep our services and union afloat. I have served on the CTA Budget Committee and fully understand our budget process and its limitations. I will build upon my experience as a member of the Long Term Strategic Plan Steering Committee to focus the organization on key priorities and goals. I will work to expand programs to develop new leaders. Our strength as a union will depend on our ability to bring in many more, diverse, voices to our struggle for educational justice. And I will work, as we all must, to engage parents in coalition building. I will use my organizing and political skills, developed from a lifetime of experiences, to connect with communities and build political power, not only in the hallways of Sacramento, but in neighborhoods across California. Our members are looking for answers. I might not have all of them, but my willingness to engage deeply with you about our profession, our priorities, and our collective future will help us find the answers together. I know, with your help and guidance, we can build a stronger CTA. Meeden Goldberg Below are campaign statements of candidates for CTA officers in the April 2015 State Council elections. The statements are unedited and limited to 400 words. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are those of the candidates and not necessarily those of CTA and NEA. 60 www.cta.org