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The Winner: Kids and Public Schools

In every way, voters told politicians in November they support quality public education--not cutbacks and vouchers.

California Teachers Association activists help celebrate the overwhelming defeat of school vouchers.

November's Presidential race and a handful of other candidate showdowns may have produced razor-thin results, but, overall, the November elections produced one whopping, lopsided victor: America's public schools.

"Public education was a top issue among candidates and voters at all race levels," stresses NEA President Bob Chase. "Public schools emerged as a uniting force in this election, and the result is an overwhelming mandate to improve and support those schools."

In high-profile ballot initiatives in California and Michigan, voters defeated voucher proposals that would have funded private school tuition with public tax dollars by 70-30 margins.

And, in Alaska and Colorado, taxpayers rejected measures that would have slashed public education funding.

Voters in three states approved NEA-backed initiatives to fund public education in new, creative ways.

These measures include a lower, 55 percent threshold in California for taxpayer approval of school modernization bonds, a new "education" sales tax in Arizona, and dedicated funding in Washington State for needs like class size reduction and school employee cost-of living adjustments.

"As an Association, we've never before won so many proactive measures like these," notes NEA Government Relations Director Mary Elizabeth Teasley. "This is a clear indication of where voters are on education, and all the officials elected in November ought to reflect on that fact."

Even before the votes were counted, it was crystal clear to politicians what voters were thinking about.

"There wasn't one candidate out there who wasn't running on public education," says Teasley, "be the issue early childhood education, class size reduction, or teacher compensation."

And after the ballots were cast, three national exit polls revealed that education topped voter priority lists, outdistancing the economy, tax cuts, and even Social Security.

At the federal level, citizens voted in near-equal numbers for two Presidential candidates, Al Gore and George Bush, who both spoke repeatedly about education's priority importance.

Voters also created a virtual Republican-Democratic tie in the Senate--producing, in the process, what could become a bipartisan, pro-public education majority.

NEA members nationwide had a big hand in shaping this pro-public school Senate majority, working to defeat anti-public education lawmakers who favored vouchers and opposed funding for needs like class size reduction.

Meanwhile, at the same time, NEA members and affiliates worked equally hard to re-elect, whatever their party, proven friends of education like Republicans James Jeffords of Vermont and Olympia Snowe of Maine.

None of this Election Day progress could have happened without the time and treasure of thousands of NEA members, who voluntarily contributed more than $6.5 million in the 2000 election cycle to NEA's Fund for Children and Public Education--a 25 percent increase over 1999--and burned up phone lines on behalf of NEA-backed candidates.

NEA channeled school employees' fierce devotion to children and public schools directly into high-priority federal and state campaigns. NEA's outreach effort included regular E-mails to 50,000 Association "cyber-activists" and over 3 million phone calls and 11 million pieces of mail to 2.5 million NEA members.

NEA's unrelenting focus on children and public education also had an impact on races for the new House of Representatives. The Association's campaign work helped elect scores of pro-public education candidates from both political parties.

And, at the state level, Association-backed candidates won nine of 11 gubernatorial contests.

Results in state legislative races were more mixed, but the message to politicians wasn't. Washington State Rep. Don Carlson, who won a state Senate seat with the backing of NEA's state affiliate, says voters now expect legislators from both major parties to work together to improve public education.

"Education is not a D thing or an R thing," notes Carlson, a Vancouver Republican. "It's what the people of the state of Washington expect us to do."

Coalition Work--and Your NEA Dues--Stop Voucher Initiatives

California and Michigan NEA members join hands with community allies to reaffirm public education.

Detroit NAACP leader, Rev. Wendell Anthony, left, and Jose Perez of the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, at a post-election voucher briefing.

As the dust from Election 2000 clears and winning candidates move to fill campaign promises ,are filled, expect to see lots more education legislative proposals coming your way. But don't expect, for a while at least, to see many private tuition voucher proposals.

That's because, on Election Day, NEA members in California and Michigan helped crush extravagantly funded private school tuition voucher initiatives.

In both states, NEA members energized broad-based coalitions, worked phone banks, and walked precincts to explain how vouchers would cost taxpayers billions, hurt kids, provide no accountability to taxpayers, and abandon neighborhood schools.

Your NEA dues dollars helped make the grassroots and media campaigns against these voucher initiatives possible.

At last year's Representative Assembly, the nearly 10,000 delegates voted, by a two-to-one margin, to raise dues by $5 to counter attacks on public education and better promote the good things happening in public schools.

Sixty percent of the funds raised by this increase are helping NEA state affiliates fight voucher proposals and other attacks on public schools.

"The victory over vouchers is not an end, it is a beginning," NEA President Bob Chase told reporters at a post-election news briefing in Washington, D.C.

"We will go back and do the hard work it takes to address needs in urban and rural schools," said Chase. "We will join hands with religious leaders, civil rights activists, and business leaders to join their voices with parents to bring about changes and improvements."

Reinforcing Chase's message at the post-election news briefing were African-American and Hispanic community leaders, who voiced their constituents' opposition to vouchers as an answer to the problems of public schools.

Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP, said Michigan's voucher initiative was shredded by an 82-18 margin in his city because Detroiters think "vouchers rob from the poor and give to the rich and cream the best of students from public schools." Public schools, he noted, need proven solutions like smaller class sizes, more parental involvement, and more teacher training, not vouchers.

"Latino voters in Los Angeles voted by 77 percent against vouchers because they recognize the crucial importance of public education," reported Brent Wilkes of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation's largest Hispanic organization. "Families tell me the want good, quality public schools down the street from where they live, schools that recognize the needs of children and have real resources."

"The passion in the Latino community is education, and there's lots of passion for quality public education," added Jose Perez, president of the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "We need to work with public schools to enhance their ability to work with children. Educated, well-trained folks are essential for small businesses."

Rev. Anthony said anti-voucher forces triumphed in Detroit because "we brought everybody to the table who had a stake in this endeavor, including religious groups and New Detroit, a business group. Now we need to keep them at the table."

"Let's stop the warring," urged NEA's Chase. "We know how to turn school districts around, but there has to be a will, a partnership to do it."

School improvements like smaller class sizes and better teacher preparation, said Chase, are already making significant differences in states from California to North Carolina.

"Improving local schools is a local project," the NEA president added. "It must take place school by school and community by community, but it must be a national priority."

"NEA," concluded Chase, "is committed to making low-performing schools into high-priority schools."