Florida teacher Sandra Ross left an NEA conference on pro-public education advocacy this past summer energized and ready to make a difference in upcoming national, state, and local elections. She vowed to flex her political muscle to ensure that the needs of the public education community were being heard and answered by candidates at each level.

That she would do it as a member of the Republican Party was a boon for the NEA. In fact her Association encouraged it, having sponsored its first-ever Republican Leaders Conference in Minneapolis in August. An estimated 1 million of NEA's 3.2 million members are Republicans, which can translate to significant influence on Republican candidates when it comes to education policy and funding that bolsters public education.
   
Created to assist NEA Republican members in becoming more active in their local and state Republican parties, the conference--organized by NEA's Government Relations Department--featured panel discussions by fellow Republican members who are state legislators and party activists. After heading home, she became a Republican Party precinct committee member in Orange County, Florida, started a Republican educator's club for her area, and created a Republican educators' caucus at the Florida Education Association's annual meeting.
   
Her post-conference advocacy momentum led her to last week's Republican debate in Florida, where she met with five of the eight GOP 2008 presidential hopefuls. In chatting with them, she said she, "made sure to emphasize to them that there are many Republican educators out there for their votes and that they needed to remember that when forming their educational stances." And she even squeezed in an interview with a local news channel covering the debate to reinforce that message.     
   
Around the country, other conference attendees are taking similar steps to ensure their voice is being heard. Michele Bowman of Tennessee plans to speak to each of the local Republican clubs in the upcoming year about public education priorities. While meeting with one of her senators, Bowman said a staffer asked her about being both a Republican and a member of the NEA. Bowman viewed that as a jumping-off point to talk about the expectations and hopes that pro-public education NEA Republicans have for their elected officials. She also plans to invite her senator to attend a Reading is Fundamental day at her school.
   
Within a few weeks of the Minneapolis gathering, Mary Beth Flusche attended her first Republican club meeting in her hometown of Muskogee, Oklahoma. She questioned her state's speaker of the house about vouchers and merit pay, then fielded a request from him to sit on an education committee. Later that week she received a phone call from her state representative and landed a seat on a committee interviewing state political candidates. "I felt like I could speak intelligently to these politicians," said Flusche.

Jerome Hoynes of Illinois is taking his advocacy to the Internet. Inspired by what he learned at the conference, he developed a website, elephanteducators.org, with the intention of "motivating more Republican educators to join our efforts," said Hoynes.