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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 18, 1999

News Release

NEA Conference To Focus on Using Bargaining To Create Quality Public Schools

Washington, D.C. -- Education researchers agree: the quality of a child's teacher is the single most important factor in the quality of a child's education. And most Americans agree that attracting the most talented individuals to teaching means paying competitive salaries.

Those two objectives -- quality teachers and improved compensation -- will be the focus of a National Education Association (NEA) conference on Friday, July 2, at the Omni Rosen Hotel in Orlando, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The conference, "Bargaining Compensation for Quality Schools," featuring nationally recognized speakers and a variety of workshops, will be open to the more than 9,000 delegates attending NEA's 1999 Representative Assembly.

NEA President Bob Chase will speak on "The Role of the Union Enabling Us to Achieve Our Goals." For two years, Chase has advocated "new unionism," encouraging NEA members and their affiliates to take the lead in bringing about educational change.

"NEA strongly believes that a professional union can help improve the quality of instruction and the quality of the teaching profession, by using collective bargaining and other means as positive tools for change," said Chase.

This spring, NEA published Stepping Forward: How NEA Members Are Revitalizing America's Public Schools -- a compendium of nearly 300 examples of how NEA affiliates across America are using a combination of partnerships, grants, and new approaches to collective bargaining to help children succeed in school.

"If we truly want to attract the talented people to teaching, we must offer them competitive salaries and benefits," Chase said. "Teaching requires special talents and inherent skills, and many employers in private industry are willing to pay top dollar to individuals possessing them." The average starting salary for teachers -- approximately $26,000 -- must be improved upon, Chase asserted.

Other conference speakers will include Allen Odden, co-director of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education Compensation Project, who will provide a national overview of school finance and compensation systems; and Mary O'Brien of the Washington Education Association and Gay Weed-Browne of the Michigan Education Association, who will provide state perspectives.

Workshops -- from 11:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., and 2:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. -- will include sessions on Interest-Based Bargaining, Knowledge and Skill-Based Pay, Alternative Compensation Systems, Group-Based Performance Awards, Rewarding High Performance Schools, Pay Equity, and Bargaining National Board Incentives.

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