RA Action:

News from the NEA Annual Meeting

July 3, 2007

Keeping America Competitive

Weaver opens the RA with a call to invest in education.

In today’s global economy, prosperity depends on human capital—and investing in public education is the only way to build that capital.

In a rousing keynote address, NEA President Reg Weaver said America's future place in the world will be determined by our ability to protect and improve public education for all children.

“What worries me most, what keeps me awake at night, is the danger of losing our ability to compete in a new economy,” said Weaver.

Boosting our competitiveness will require focused, large-scale economic investment that reflects a true emphasis on quality education, Weaver said.

The American economy’s current flabby structure provides corporate tax breaks and loopholes that cost America $50 billion in state taxes and another $50 billion at the federal level. The Iraq war has so far cost $1 trillion, more than the total federal investment in elementary and secondary education programs since the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act was enacted in 1965, Weaver said.

A stronger economic structure and tax base would help guarantee adequate school funding, which in turn would ensure that school systems can meet the challenges they face. Only then is it sound to make demands around accountability.

“The thing that gets my gall is that for the past 25 years, each [school reform] recommendation has only come up with part of the puzzle—the assessments and accountability,” Weaver told more than 8,500 cheering delegates. “Folks, people want to hold you accountable, but they never want to get to the economic structure” upon which schools rely.

Weaver proposed a new way to boost American competitiveness based on a model with roots in his native Midwest —the agricultural extension service. A network of university-based innovation hothouses for the age of information technology, which he called “the Extension Service for Knowledge, Information, and Development—KIDS,” would anchor the network. Closing business tax loopholes would help fund it.

“If Congress and corporate America answer our call—which I know they will—we can have this plan in place by 2010,” he said.

On a day when the first three of eight scheduled presidential candidates presented their ideas on education to the delegates (watch the videos ), Weaver proposed a 10-point “education bill of rights for children”: universal preschool, small class sizes, well-trained and well-paid educators, challenging curriculums and quality textbooks, active parent participation, adequate and equitable funding, help for English language learners and special needs students, a high school diploma or GED, equal educational opportunities, the use of multiple measures to determine student learning.

ESEA’s current incarnation, the one-size-fits-all “No Child Left Behind” law, has not made America more competitive. Weaver said America has led the world in innovative technology because America’s teachers have treated their students as individuals and taught them to think and solve problems. “Even if we meet all of the criteria of No Child Left Behind, it still won’t prepare our children for the 21st century,” he said. “It won’t give them the skills they need to think for themselves.

“The purpose of education is not to score well on standardized tests, [but] to give young people the tools they will need to lead a fulfilling, satisfying, and meaningful life.”

Weaver said the achievement gaps affecting minority and low-income students are “intolerable,” but remain “an indictment of the chasms that exist in our larger society: Chasms of resources, chasms of hope, chasms of opportunity,” he said. “We can’t close the achievement gaps without bridging the other chasms in our society.”