For More information:
NEA Communications (504) 670-8005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 1, 1998

NEW ORLEANS -- Georgia Governor Zell Miller will join the ranks of distinguished Americans and education's elite on July 5 as a recipient of the National Education Association's Friend of Education Award. NEA's highest honor, the award each year recognizes an individual whose leadership, acts, and support have contributed to the improvement of American education at a national level.

NEA President Bob Chase will present the award to Miller before more than 10,000 school employees who are delegates to the NEA's 1998 Representative Assembly meeting here July 3-6.

During his tenure as governor, Miller fought vigorously to expand educational opportunities for Georgia students and to improve the status of the teaching profession. In 1993, Gov. Miller, through the Georgia Lottery, implemented the HOPE Scholarship Program and the Pre-Kindergarten Program, allowing every four-year-old child to attend pre-school. The lottery money also has been used to advance technology in Georgia public schools.

Since Gov. Miller took office in 1991, education has comprised a majority of the state budget. This year alone, more than $4.7 billion of the $12.5 billion budget will be spent on public education - - including money for a 6 percent salary increase for teachers. In 1994, Gov. Miller pledged to boost teacher salaries to the national average by the end of his second term. During the 1998-99 school year, the average teacher salary in Georgia is projected to be $39,736 - - less than $1,000 below the projected national average of $40,617.

Gov. Miller also is responsible for creating the Professional Standards Commission, an autonomous board that oversees teacher certification; promoting the election of local boards of education and the appointment of local superintendents; and implementing Charter Schools, the Safe Schools Act, after-school programs for elementary students, alternative schools, and the Pay for Performance program.

Miller was nominated by his own "Peach State" boosters, the Georgia Association of Educators. "Governor Miller has put public education first," GAE President Grady Yancey, Jr., said earlier this week. "We are proud of him and his record, and we are proud that the National Education Association has chosen to honor him."

Miller is only the second sitting governor to received the NEA's Friend of Education Award, sharing the honor with Gov. James Hunt (N. C.), who was last year's winner. The first recipient of

the NEA Friend of Education Award was President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was honored in 1972.

Other winners include fellow Georgian, former President Jimmy Carter (1980), Thurgood Marshall (1979), Christa McAuliffe (1986), Sen. Claiborne Pell (1990), Jonathan Kozol (1992), and President Bill Clinton (1996).

The National Education Association is the nation's largest professional employee organization representing more than 2.4 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support personnel, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers.

The NEA's Annual Meeting runs through July 6 at the Ernest Morial Convention Center.