It is heartening to be at the CTA convention as a union member who too often hears the criticism of "unions" in general, and often hears about how unions protect those who aren't doing their job. The truth is, that the CTA is doing its part to improve education by putting on a convention with at least 800 members attending a number of stands including school improvement, bargaining, improving teaching, building trust, changing a school's culture in order to help everyone succeed, talking about race, and about creating Professional Learning Communities at schools that lead change.
I will post more on these topics later, but at this moment, we are having the closing plenary with Karen Bass speaking to us along with our union leaders, including David Sánches, CTA President, so this will be a live blog of the comments made.
On our seats we have found a three page summary of the difficult situation in which schools find themselves now, following the budget agreement that was recently signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, but not before it was cut even futher by his line veto pen to the tune of half a billion dollars.On the pamphlet there is a call to end the 2/3 requirement to pass the state budget.
More information later today since the meeting just started....