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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 4, 2001

NEWS RELEASE

NEA President Calls on Members to Rescue Low-Performing Schools

Chase commits to visit struggling schools during final year in office

Los Angeles - Mapping out a way to make low-performing schools a top priority was the central message of the keynote address delivered this afternoon by National Education Association President Bob Chase. Addressing more than 9,000 delegates to the Association's Representative Assembly, President Chase called on NEA members to assume the challenge of getting all students on the path to higher achievement.

"We must work together to reach the neediest children and uplift the lowest performing schools," Chase told delegates. "It is not a question of whether we can lift up low-performing schools, but whether we have the will to do so."

Chase said he would visit low-performing schools across the country during his final year in office with one goal in mind: to focus attention on the hidden potential within these schools rather than on their shortcomings.

"In every city and town that I visit during my last year as NEA president, I will make it my business to visit those schools that are not showcases," Chase said. "Not to shine a spotlight of shame on these schools, but to offer a small beacon of light."

Recognizing that parents, politicians, business leaders and communities each play a role, Chase nonetheless urged school employees to take the lead in ensuring every child receives a quality education at a neighborhood public school. If every public school is not a place where NEA members would send their own children, said Chase, "then we have failed our professional mission and our moral obligation."

On a broader scale, Chase said the 2.6 million-member Association would advocate for resources at the state and federal levels for universal pre-school, intensive literacy programs and smaller class sizes, reforms that have proven successful in turning around lower-performing schools.

NEA's commitment to helping those schools of greatest need will be demonstrated throughout the 2001 Representative Assembly with efforts designed to help NEA members make every public school great. Most visibly, NEA's Priority Schools Initiative exhibit is offering resources - directed through NEA affiliate, legislative and community outreach - to help school employees turn struggling schools into "high priority" learning centers.

While challenging the delegates to act heroically on behalf of children and schools that need it most, President Chase also highlighted the heroism of seven NEA members, whose acts of kindness, he said, are "endemic to our work."

Among the honorees were:

David Bocchichio, of East Hartford, Connecticut, who gave the gift of life when he donated a kidney to the mother of three of his former students.

Janis Eggert, of Lebanon, Oregon, who was responsible for running a successful grassroots school construction bond campaign.

Thomas Ibarra, of Los Angeles, California, who was one of the first people to join an ACLU lawsuit against the state of California regarding school funding disparity issues.

Rhonda Simmons, of Las Vegas, Nevada, who started and runs the Madison Movement Dance Troupe for at-risk children.

David Smith and Sandra Roberts, of Whitwell, Tennessee, who developed an after-school, voluntary project on the Holocaust to teach children in the rural South about the world around them.

In a surprise announcement, Chase also recognized Marion Galbraith, a lifelong friend from Groton, Connecticut, who tutors and mentors her former students from an inner-city school and co-founded a program called PEER - Parents and Educators for the Elimination of Racism in Schools.

"While each and every one of them is extraordinary," said Chase, "they are not that atypical. I've seen you staying after class to help students with long division...I've seen you comforting a feverish child whose parent can't pick her up from school. Every day, at our very best, we perform quiet acts of heroism."

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The National Education Association is the nation’s largest professional employee organization, representing 2.7 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support personnel, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers.