‘We Will Not Be Silent!’
At the 2014 NEA Representative Assembly (RA), held in July in Denver, Colo., nearly 7,000 delegates bid a warm farewell to outgoing NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and elected an historic trio of women— Lily Eskelsen GarcÃa, president; Rebecca “Becky” Pringle, vice president; and Princess Moss, secretary-treasurer—to lead them through the next three years. When the three take office Sept. 1 to lead NEA’s efforts to advocate for the interests of students and empower the educators who help to build their success, they will make NEA the first major union led by three women of color.
The team will face a host of issues affecting the nation’s public schools: budget crises, inequity, corporate take-overs, attacks on educator rights, and more. And RA delegates spent their time determining ways to maintain the Association’s momentum and driving solutions to the challenges ahead.
NEA is determined to neutralize the influence of corporate reformers, and move equity front and center in the national conversation about public education. In his final keynote speech to RA delegates, Van Roekel called on educators to build on the association’s “student-centered strategy.”
“Educators have to become the champions of equity to define solutions that drive excellence and success for all students,” Van Roekel said. “There will be pushback. There will be struggle. And yes, there will be progress. There must be progress!”
Delegates responded July 3 with an overwhelmingly successful vote to take action against the “test, blame and punish” system that has dominated the last decade under No Child Left Behind. They approved the use of NEA resources to launch a national campaign to end the high stakes use of standardized tests, to sharply reduce the amount of student and instructional time consumed by tests, and to implement more effective forms of assessment and accountability. In short, said Van Roekel, “It’s past time for politicians to turn their eyes and ears away from those who profit from overtesting our students and listen instead to those who know what works in the classroom.”
RA delegates also reaffirmed their commitment to continue working with states that adopted the Common Core State Standards to ensure the standards are properly implemented and that educators are properly trained and empowered to lead in that process.
The urgency to take more assertive measures on these critical issues was echoed by Sean McComb, National Teacher of the Year, and Paula Monroe, who was named Education Support Professional (ESP) of the Year. McComb, an NEA member who teaches in Baltimore County, reminded delegates that educators—not politicians or billionaires—take action every day in the classroom to help set students on a path to success.
“As others deliberate and debate, we have chosen to act…We are proud to be part of that solution, part of that investment,” McComb said. “We are proud to be a profession that takes up that call.”
Monroe passionately denounced the hordes of politicians and pushers of corporate education “reform” for their single-minded obsession with scapegoating educators.
“While they are attacking, threatening, and suing us, who is focusing on the real problems?” Monroe asked. “We need to focus on the real solutions to the entrenched social and economic problems that threaten to ‘We Will Not Be Silent!’ | NEA Today:
