News:
Heroes & Zeroes

NEA has given its 2000 Friend of Education Award to Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy for his four decades of hard work on behalf of children and public education. NEA President Bob Chase notes that every major education law passed since the 1960s has borne Kennedy's imprint, from Head Start to the Class Size Reduction Act.

Human rights organizations have condemned the government of Peru for passing a new law that sets the legal minimum wage for child workers at 12, the youngest in Latin America.

In September, the 1,450 teacher and ESP members of the Hamilton Township (New Jersey) Education Association staged an eight-day strike in the face of a court injunction and some $2.5 million in fines. But these NEA members stuck together and won a 13.55 percent raise over three years.

That's heroic enough, but gutsier yet were 105 members of the Hamilton Township School Secretaries Association. Even though they had a contract, these ESP honored the HTEA picket line--while facing individual fines of $50 a day. That's solidarity.