Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/515703
But the revealing lessons learned from the Quality Education Investment Act of 2006 (QEIA) will live on as best-practice tools for educators statewide. Proven reforms like small class sizes, more teacher collaboration time, and better professional development crafted by educators all work wonders, the sustained project showed. And QEIA showed how CTA had changed from doing short-term cam- paigns and fixes to an eight-year commitment of staff and resources to help nearly 400,000 mostly low-income, minority students. The union committed nearly $3 billion it had won in a school funding lawsuit settlement for lifting up 500 schools with extra resources. The reform law clearly proves that CTA is putting professional issues among its top priorities, along with improving teaching and learning, says CTA President Dean Vogel. "There is a real sense of pride about how educators made this dream of teacher-driven reform a reality that worked on this scale," Vogel says. "With QEIA, with this unprece- dented turnaround program that's the largest of its kind in the nation, we learned that certain proven reforms can work for all schools. Smaller class sizes, more teacher collaboration time, fostering a sense of collective com- munity accountability — the QEIA-supported schools excelled with all of these targeted resources, and more." Not even massive education cuts from the brutal Great Recession of 2008-12 — during which about 30,000 Cal- ifornia teaching jobs were lost — could derail the reform law. Because some districts failed to meet the law's class size reduction mandates or other requirements, the total Heralded by education experts as the visionary school turnaround program led by California's educators, a revolutionary CTA-led experiment based on bringing more resources di- rectly to our students of greatest need is ending as planned on June 30 after eight years of documented and inspiring success. WHO & WHAT? 400,000 STUDENTS *According to the state's accountability system. SCHOOLS STRUGGLING IN THE BOTTOM 20%* 500 QUALIFIED FOR FREE/REDUCED LUNCH 90% LATINO/HISPANIC 78% ENGLISH LEARNERS (ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS) 50% 24 www.cta.org Feature