RA Action:

News from the NEA Annual Meeting

July 3, 2008

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Weaver To Open His Final RA

NEA President Reg Weaver will call to order "Team NEA" and the NEA Representative Assembly for the last time today.

Today at 11 a.m., President Reg Weaver calls to order the NEA Representative Assembly for the last time. Weaver, whose six-years as leader of “Team NEA” have been characterized by an unwavering commitment to ensuring the best possible education for every child and promoting respect and workplace justice for educators, will also give his final keynote address during the first session of the Association’s 87th RA.

Tonight, delegates will honor Weaver with a special Friendship Night concert—headlined by Maze, featuring Frankie Beverly—in the Washington Convention Center ballroom.

During the RA’s afternoon session, the Association will present Governor Mike Easley of North Carolina with its first America’s Greatest Education Governor award. Easley won praise from educators for his support of raising teachers’ salaries and his innovative “Learn and Earn” program, which aims to give students a head start on a debt-free college education.

Plenty of Association work awaits delegates on this first day of the RA, including discussion of proposed amendments to the NEA Constitution and Bylaws and an hour of new business.

NEA’s reform call draws Obama praise; delegates tackle dropouts and training

There should be a new balance in the federal role in education, NEA President Reg Weaver said yesterday, unveiling a comprehensive NEA proposal that spells out how to get there. Under the so-called “No Child Left Behind” law, there’s far too much testing and punishing, and not enough funding, Weaver said. “Federal education policy needs more than a legislative tweak here and there.”

NEA President Reg Weaver lays out NEA’s program for a new balance in the federal role in education, at a press conference yesterday.

NEA’s proposal calls on the federal government to better enforce civil rights laws to promote access and opportunity, fund past congressional actions and current federal mandates, and help create the capacity at local and state levels for school transformation.

Also on Tuesday, delegates packed a forum on the dropout crisis among ethnic minorities. ABC Primetime anchor John Quiñones and actor/activist Hill Harper joined education experts on a panel that emphasized students and educators must be supported by parents, communities, administrators, and legislators. Too often they aren’t, said Norma Cantú, a civil rights attorney and professor. “For many of our students, let’s call it what it is: not dropouts, but pushouts.”

Obama’s education advisor, Linda Darling-Hammond, encouraged a standing room-only crowd of attendees at the annual Teacher Quality policy briefing to “take charge” in her keynote speech. “All children have the right to learn, but we must also guarantee that teachers have the same right,” she said. She urged teachers to campaign for candidates and education reform that values them, including greater professional development and mentoring opportunities.