Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/458422
Thank you for all the work you do every day for our students and our communities. The work you do is challenging, but you stick with it nonetheless. You are not thanked often enough! I'm Eric Heins, an elementary school teacher in Pittsburg, California, and candidate for CTA president. In my twenty-four years as an educator, I've seen lots of changes in our schools: No Child Left Behind, scripted curriculum, increased standardized testing, Common Core, and the de-professionalizing of teaching. Public education has been under attack, taking many forms, from the subtle to the obvious, for too long. And one thing has been crystal clear: the agenda hasn't been about our students. Pre-K through graduate school, educators are being crushed under the weight of the demands and the work. In addition, we've suffered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Thirty thousand educators lost their jobs, and public education lost billions in desperately needed funding. It was crystal clear that something had to be done — and you did it! You worked and elected a governor who gets it, a superintendent of public instruction who gets it, and a legislature who gets it. You worked and passed Proposition 30, a much-needed tax increase that stopped the financial bleeding. California is back! Now it's time for us to take the next step. It's time for us to take back our professions. It's time for us to step up to stop the attacks. But we have to do more than just say "No!" We need to set and move a positive agenda forward. We must join with our communities to do what's right: raise student achievement, fight back the culture of testing and standardization, and improve the working conditions of our members which are, after all, the learning conditions of our students. We must demand that every student in California has access to a free, quality public education. As your president, I will ensure that CTA is leading the charge for positive change. We have the tools in our long-term strategic plan and we have the expertise — you. All we need is the will, and we have that, too! We will rebuild our public education systems, attract and retain top quality educators, and value every student. Once again, California will show the rest of the country how it's done. Eric Heins for CTA president! 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. Candidate for CTA President Eric C. Heins Member, Pittsburg Education Association; current CTA vice president. Candidate for CTA President Mark Airgood Grievance chair, Oakland Education Association; NEA Representative Assembly delegate. Heins Defend Public Education! Elect Mark Airgood for CTA President! The struggle for our union is, and must be, a civil rights struggle for the people of California. Our schools are among the most racially segregated in the nation. Many of our students live in poverty, and the schools that we share are overcrowded and starved of essential resources. We have the largest class sizes in the nation, and remain 47th in per pupil spending. This is a scandal for the richest state in the country. We have the power to change all of this if we organize together with our students to defend our public schools and ourselves. Both Democratic and Republican politicians, backed by the super-rich billionaires, are pushing a new period of Jim Crow, institutionalized inequality and repression aimed at the black, Latino/a, and immigrant communities. This is what the push for charter schools and privatization is all about. The current CTA leadership has no perspective to fight these attacks other than latching onto Governor Brown's coattails. We need to act like a union and build mass actions to win our own historic program – smaller class sizes, full electives, increased funding, protections for teachers transfer rights, and seniority. I have been a Special Education teacher in Oakland for the past eighteen years. I'm a union leader in the OEA and a civil rights activist with the Equal Opportunity Now/By Any Means Necessary Caucus (EON/BAMN). I stand on my record of struggle and that of the EON/BAMN caucus. BAMN has taken the fight for affirmative action to US Supreme Court; we have spearheaded the fight to remove Arne Duncan, we have built national mass marches for immigrant rights and affirmative action. EON/BAMN caucus member Steve Conn was elected President of the Detroit Federation of Teachers earlier this year. We are committed to fighting to win. Under my leadership we will begin a collective fight for our students and our schools—a fight to save public education, to strengthen our union, and to realize the promise of hope and progress that the youth of California deserve. Our strength and our potential extend far beyond our own numbers, because the struggle for our union is united with the needs of our students and community. Again: the struggle for our union is, and must be, a civil rights struggle for the people of California. We will not march alone. Airgood 56 www.cta.org