RA Action:

News from the NEA Annual Meeting

July 6, 2008

Remarks by Dennis Van Roekel, NEA President-Elect

It is very special for me to be standing here before you.

I attended my first Representative Assembly in 1980. And as I was thinking about what I wanted to say to you, I realized what a tough act it is to follow the five presidents who I watched since I started coming to the RA.

First Willard McGuire, then followed by Mary Hatwood Futrell, Keith Geiger … and then I served as an officer with both Bob Chase and Reg Weaver. I watched them over a lot of years do so many things.

They inspired me and challenged me, and gave me opportunities to figure out where I fit in this whole organization, and they allowed me to go after what I really deeply cared about.

I've received many questions about what it will be like when I'm president. One reporter wrote an article and called me the “mystery man at NEA.”

They don't know who I am. I want to tell you: The mission and vision of this organization absolutely define who I am, what I care about and what I believe in.

I grew up in a very small town in Iowa, but one thing that was absolutely true is that from my parents, from my teachers and from the entire community, they talked about education, the value of education, the opportunities that exist when you go through those doors.

And although it was a small town a long ways away, I understood that any road going anywhere I wanted to be, public education would take me there.

And that road went through my hometown.

I learned early on that teaching was an honorable profession. I decided in seventh grade I was going to be a teacher. I thought about teaching English and then I asked myself, who wanted to grade all those papers?

And I didn't get poetry very well, so I thought I ought to choose a subject that I actually knew how to do. So I chose mathematics.

And, you know, like most of you in this room, I soon learned that being a teacher was just half the job. The other half was being part of this organization.

You can't do half a job. If you care about the students you teach, if you want to make a difference in their lives, if you want to advocate for what you believe in, you have to go where the decision-makers are.

And so I got involved in this organization, and it has been part of my life ever since.

Education and the Association work go hand in hand, one and the same. The very first part of NEA's mission statement says that we advocate for educational professionals, and that is what hooked me.

The first time I got to serve as a grievance chair, and I sat across the table from the superintendent and all those people, I thought, man, this little math teacher is really tying up a lot of salaries on the other side of the table. And they had to listen to me.

I was always more prepared than they were.

And I loved the feeling of the power of our collective voice, of our collective action.

And bargaining, oh, that was great. I loved doing that. When we got into political action, I understood advocacy. I understood the value of collective action. Nothing good in this country has ever come except through collective action. It is always the goodwill of the people who want to make things happen, and that is what we do.

Our mission statement says we must unite our members and the nation. I can't think of a better time to do that than in the fall of 2008.

It's time to build partnerships. We can't do this by ourselves, but this is a time when we need to come together and decide what the right direction is for America.

Seventy percent of the American people believe our nation is on the wrong track. Let's choose the right direction in 2008.

But I think the part of the mission that speaks to me so personally is when we say that it is our mission, the reason we exist as an organization, is to fulfill the promise of public education. I mean, that's real.

Those aren't just words on a piece of paper. I'm here because of that.

I chose my career in seventh grade, and for 25 years I got to live my dream: I stood in front of high school students teaching math.

What a powerful statement for any organization, to say that the reason we exist is to fulfill the promise of public education—and not just for some, but to prepare every student to succeed.

Never been done in the world. Not even in this country. Never once has that been accomplished.

And yet this organization has the audacity to say that's why we exist. I'm proud of that. And I want to continue that journey.

And when we talk about our vision statement, a great public school for every student, I know some on the outside want to reduce that to a slogan or a bumper sticker.

No, that's not what it's about.

When I envision a great public school for every student, I actually have a picture in my mind. I know what it looks like.

I imagine what it must feel like to be in a building where the entire entity supports and believes in every child that walks through the door, and they have the resources and the opportunity to do what they know they need to do. I dream of the day when that happens.

And it is our responsibility as an organization to make that vision a reality. We have to define a Great Public School by criteria. We need to define the indicators, and then we must go state by state and say, here are the public policies that must be in place or you cannot have this.

And it's time we had it in every state in America.

I think the operative word in 2008 is "change." Ever since the primaries began so long ago, it seems you can't read an article that doesn't talk about change, the importance of change.

I've always been fascinated by change. There are probably more books and articles written on change than almost any subject. Some say that change causes stress, so you need to learn how to manage stress.

But then I read another author and he said, oh, no, change doesn't cause stress. Resisting change is what causes stress.

You can't stop change. And the moment you think you can stop it, that's when it will cause you stress.

I liked his little P.S.: If you don't believe that change continues to happen, look at your high school graduation picture. You just can't stop that change.

Dilbert had a different theory: "Change is good. You go first."

Which kind of amounts to what most people do. They want everybody else to be different. They know how everybody else ought to change.

The truth is, there is only one person you get to change, and that is yourself.

But my theory of change is different from all of those. My theory of change is very simple. I think it only has to do with your satisfaction level. If you're satisfied the way it is for you and those around you, why would you ask for change? In fact, you might even fight to maintain the status quo.

It is only through dissatisfaction with what exists that you're willing to do whatever is necessary to change it.

I can tell you, in 2008, I am not satisfied.

I am not satisfied with a public education system that allows close to 50 percent of young African-American and Hispanic males not to get through school.

I cannot dream up of a scenario of success for America where we can afford to lose that group of young people, without an education, without hope and without promise.

I am not satisfied with the unequal access to schools. I'm not satisfied with the insufficient and inequitable resources that are given to schools.

And I am not satisfied that some children in this nation go to a school that is beautiful and well-equipped and modern in every way, and others go to a building that screams that society does not care about them.

I hope that every single one of you leaves this RA gloriously dissatisfied.

I hope it gnaws deep down inside you so that you say, “I can't stand it another moment.”

The richest, most powerful nation in the world cannot provide for its children. Cannot provide health care, cannot provide education. Something is wrong, it needs to change.

And when you feel that dissatisfaction, you will not only accept change, you will demand it.

At one of our conferences, I loved the theme, a new era arising for public education.

A new era arising. I dream that era is an era of hope, of possibilities, of opportunities. And many years from now, I hope no one looks back at this group of people who attended the 2008 Representative Assembly and calls us timid and shy.

I hope they look back at us and say, that was a group that had the audacity to dream big. They had the courage to act, and they had the power, the ability to act, to influence, to make a difference . . . the power to make it happen.

NEA, 2008 will be our best year ever, with even better yet to come.

Thank you very much!