President's Viewpoint

Enough is Enough!

NEA President Reg Weaver

What makes you angry? Is it when someone is unwilling to believe that class size matters? How about when people insist that the quality of the teacher and education support professional doesn’t matter? What about hearing a denial that parental involvement is critical to a child’s educational success?

While all of those scenarios often cause me to pause and wonder, nothing has gotten my attention more than recent actions undertaken by the U.S. Congress and the White House—actions that will harm millions and millions of kids. 

Just days before Christmas, Congress gave children the cruelest present they could ever receive. They cut federal education funding by more than $624 million, and slashed the so-called No Child Left Behind law by $1 billion. Already under-funded by $40 billion over the past five years, new congressional cuts left the law with less money than it had when it was created! Under the guise of hurricane relief, they also passed the first taxpayer-funded national voucher program.

That was just the beginning. Other programs fell under the congressional hatchet. Title I was cut by $28 million. Pell Grants—need-based money that has sent scores of low-income students to college—were frozen. And special education spending was reduced by $7 million—the first time the program has been cut in an entire decade.

But Congress didn’t just hurt children and students when it comes to learning. They also cut 60,000 low-income children from Medicaid. This represents the very first time since the program was created—more than four decades ago—that Medicaid has been reduced for kids who are already struggling. 

A few weeks after Congress made their cuts, President George W. Bush hopped aboard the budget-cutting bandwagon. He presented a plan that cuts $2.1 billion from education spending, eliminating 42 programs that he considers to be unnecessary—art and technology, parent resource centers, and drug-free schools programs. 

Something is desperately wrong when folks can say they want to leave no child behind, then turn around and level the worst assault on education that our nation has ever seen. 

Team NEA, enough is enough! As educators, we know nothing is more necessary than helping children grow into safe, responsible, and well-rounded adults. 

Every child has the basic right to attend a great public school, and we must step up our efforts to keep that right protected. That means spreading the message to the public that we need their support like never before. It means holding all elected leaders—and those who hope to be elected, be they Democrats, Republicans, or Independents—accountable to our nation’s children.

America’s children are not pawns on some political chessboard. They are not slogans to be trotted out when an election looks like it’s going to be close. And they are not nameless, faceless numbers to be eliminated from the federal budget—particularly during the same time tax cuts for the already-rich are being made permanent. 

Children are our future. This nation can and must do better, and Team NEA, it’s time for us to lead the way.