NEA's Brand of School Improvement
The National Education Association's $6 million Priority Schools Campaign got a bit lost last year in the wake of all the Race to the Top action. Other reporters, myself included, had a hard time distinguishing this effort from all of NEA's other initiatives.
Fortunately, while covering the NEA convention in New Orleans recently, I had a chance to sit down with Sheila Simmons and Steve Snider, the director and associate director, respectively, of the campaign.
A 2009 mandate of the union's 9,000 delegate Representative Assembly, the campaign is funded through the union's strategic plan. It will focus on four core tenets for improving low-performing schools: increasing staff effectiveness; developing family and school partnerships; increasing district and local-union collaboration; and leveraging community assets.
Those tenets aren't groundbreaking in and of themselves, the directors noted. What's new is that they are being put together in a comprehensive reform approach. As Simmons told me, "It's clear that none of this is really
Fortunately, while covering the NEA convention in New Orleans recently, I had a chance to sit down with Sheila Simmons and Steve Snider, the director and associate director, respectively, of the campaign.
A 2009 mandate of the union's 9,000 delegate Representative Assembly, the campaign is funded through the union's strategic plan. It will focus on four core tenets for improving low-performing schools: increasing staff effectiveness; developing family and school partnerships; increasing district and local-union collaboration; and leveraging community assets.
Those tenets aren't groundbreaking in and of themselves, the directors noted. What's new is that they are being put together in a comprehensive reform approach. As Simmons told me, "It's clear that none of this is really
