Making Our Numbers Talk

Photo by Matt Ferguson

Congress receives 13,000 e-mails from nearly 10,000 NEA Representative Assembly delegates. The message: Fix and fund the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Tamara Coleman, a high school special ed teacher from Georgia, was tired of broken federal promises to fully fund special education, while Connecticut middle school teachers Aurelia Young and Abigail Warren were deeply concerned about the impact of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)--also known as the No Child Left Behind Act--on their practice and students.

And, Warren, who had just finished her fourth year of teaching, also wanted to "meet other people in the profession and get [new] ideas about public education and how to improve in the classroom."

Whatever motivated these and other first-time elected delegates to attend NEA's 82nd Representative Assembly (RA) in July, they left New Orleans knowing more about both federal education laws and the power of organized public educators to improve them.

Over six days, nearly 10,000 delegates sent some 13,000 e-mails and more than 1,000 phone calls to members of Congress urging them to "fix and fund" ESEA--and lined up to tell an NEA film crew of the damage this law is inflicting in the classroom.

"The stated goals of ESEA--closing the achievement gap, ensuring highly qualified teachers, improving academic achievement--are from our very own book," NEA President Reg Weaver pointed out in his RA keynote address.

"NEA's concern with this legislation lies with the implementation of, and the lack of adequate funding for, its laudable goals," Weaver told the RA.

"Each of us agreed to an unwritten contract that says, 'I am not agreeing to teach only affluent children or only bright children or only children who look a certain way,'" stressed NEA Vice President Dennis Van Roekel at a pre-RA conference. "As a public educator I agree with my whole heart to teach, respect, and value every child who comes into my school--without exception."

Delegates voiced support for NEA's Great Public Schools for Every Child Action Plan, which focuses on passage of amendments to ESEA, fair implementation of its provisions, a legal challenge to the statute's unfunded mandates, and stepped-up member organizing and political action in 2003-04.

"We will make sure our elected officials know that we are monitoring their 'adequate yearly progress,'" Weaver noted. "When they don't measure up, we will hold them accountable on Election Day."

NEA Annual Meeting Delegates Elect New Leaders, Make Policy

It's a mammoth task to elect leaders and make policy for an organization of 2.7 million preK-graduate school employees, retired educators, and Student Program members, but this year's Representative Assembly (RA) came through yet again. In four days of business, RA delegates:

Elected several new Association leaders. By acclamation, delegates gave incumbent NEA Secretary-Treasurer Lily Eskelsen, a Utah elementary teacher who ran unopposed, a full three-year term, starting in September.

Delegates also elected Oklahoma elementary teacher Carolyn Crowder to a three-year term on the NEA Executive Committee, and selected Jane Ligon of Tennessee, Paula Monroe of California, and Shirley Howard and Yolanda Molina of Texas as at-large education support professional (ESP) representatives on the NEA Board of Directors.

Set new policy. The Representative Assembly updated NEA's legislative program and resolutions, adding, among other things, an amended resolution declaring that standardized tests "should only be an adjunct or supplement" to information obtained though assessments conducted by teachers to support, strengthen, summarize, or evaluate student learning.

And the RA adopted a new NEA policy on early childhood education, which calls for mandatory, publicly funded all-day kindergarten for all eligible children, plus nonmandatory universal prekindergarten for all three- and four-year-olds.

Adopted action items. Delegates voted on 70 new business items (NBIs), which direct NEA action in areas such as retirement/pension security, health care and school health, and constitutional rights, and which express NEA support for educators "who are facing the possible closure of schools due to a budget crisis."

Other NBIs commit NEA to participation in several national days of action, including a day to focus on "state educational funding" and unfunded federal education mandates and an early autumn Lobby Day for the repeal of federal Social Security offset provisions.

Recharged batteries. RA participants took home inspiration from speeches by National Teacher of the Year Betsy Rogers--an NEA member from Alabama--and NEA ESP of the Year Martin Meyer, an Idaho school custodian. "My job description is about a building, but my job is about people," said this union and child advocate.

And delegates took some advice from Secretary-Treasurer Eskelsen, herself a former Utah Teacher of the Year. "NEA is in its 20th consecutive year of membership growth, but that growth is tapering off," Eskelsen reported. "It's more important than ever to find new ways to get people in eligible categories to join NEA. This is what will allow us to be a force for every child."