Michael Moore on what happens when you “sit at the table.”
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel held a telephone town hall meeting for RA delegates last night. Delegates could call in with questions. I called with a question about last year’s no confidence vote of Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top, what response we got from the administration and what that means for a July 2011 NEA endorsement of Obama.
I called shortly after the teleconference began. No surprise that I didn’t get to ask my question. And I missed the first quarter of the Bulls game while waiting.
The unusual early no-strings endorsement of Obama is part of the NEA’s sitting at the table strategy. If you object to their strategy, the leadership will tell you that if you don’t agree to discuss just about anything, you will have no influence on the outcome. In this case, Dennis argued that if we don’t endorse Obama this year, we won’t have any influence on the campaign.