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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 13, 1999

News Release

NEA VP Weaver Addresses NAACP Convention

Urges Delegates to Stand Against Vouchers and Abandonment of Public Schools;
Challenges NAACP to Join Drive for Quality Education for All Children

New York, N.Y. -- Reg Weaver, Vice President of the National Education Association (NEA) today addressed delegates to the annual NAACP convention at the group's Labor Luncheon. Before a crowd of some 1,000 delegates and guests, Weaver, one of the highest-ranking African-American labor leaders in the nation, praised the partnership of the labor movement and civil rights movement, calling it "a conspiracy of conscience. There has always been a link between education and human freedom," Weaver said, just as there has "always been a link between education and equality."

"Public schools have been a battleground in the struggle for civil rights," the NEA leader said, citing Brown v. Board of Education as addressing access to quality education for all Americans. "We face a tough, historic choice," he continued, acknowledging that some in the African-American community are dissatisfied with their local schools. "Will we go down the path of vouchers, siphoning the best students and the most motivated parents away from inner-city public school systems? Or will we rededicate ourselves -- redouble our commitment -- to making public education work for all our children?" Put another way, Weaver said, the choice is "to abandon public schools or redeem them."

The NEA vice president urged NAACP delegates to resist the path of vouchers, saying "Only two institutions remain to anchor inner-city communities: the churches and the public schools." Calling vouchers "a fundamentally dishonest scheme," Weaver noted that parents have no choice when the private school admissions committee says, "Sorry, your child would not be appropriate for our school," nor when private and parochial schools already have long waiting lists, or when there is no transportation to voucher schools across town or in the suburbs.

Weaver challenged his audience to become engaged in the campaign for quality public education, citing the need to get behind "research-based reforms -- things we know really work" like smaller class sizes in early grades, tougher standards for student achievement and student behavior, and teacher quality. "I ask you to be divinely dissatisfied with schools that do not expect the best -- and produce the best -- in every one of our children," he said.

Recalling the powerful words of writer Richard Wright, Weaver concluded, "It is our task to restore in inner-city children their 'impulse to dream.' Let us insist on schools that ensure every child's civil right to a quality public education."