The National Education Association (NEA) is holding its annual national representative assembly (RA) right now in Chicago. Today, Vice-President Biden gave a great stump speech at the convention (see Hyde Park Johnny's excellent diary on that and tomorrow or the next day, the NEA, a union of over 3 million educators, will take the unprecedented step of making an early endorsement of President Obama, one full year before it normally would. Why? More below.
There has been a fair amount of media attention given to the many education initiatives started by the Obama Administration over its first two years. Not all of them have been popular with a great number of teachers, however. Specifically, the method chosen of "turning around" poorly-performing schools as well as an active acceptance to charter schools and a passive acceptance to standardized tests have been three fairly large bones of contention between educators and the Obama Administration. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan has borne the brunt of the frustration, since he's the idea and front man for it, and he's not a very popular Secretary of Education with many teachers as a result.
In fact, a faction group has developed within the NEA that grows out of the group Equal Opportunity Now - By Any Means Necessary (EON-BAMN). They view the measures taken by Sec. Duncan and the Obama Administration ("Race to the Top", competitive grants, charter schools, etc) as being civil rights violations, and have become increasingly vocal in their displeasure with the Obama/Duncan education reforms.
EON-BAMN has proposed a number of new business items at the RA so far, and ran several candidates for executive committee offices. So far, all business items have been voted down, and all their candidates received less than 10% of the Association's vote. So, while vocal, they are a small faction.
So, if a lot of teachers are frustrated with Obama's policies and don't like Duncan, why the early endorsement that's coming? Let's look at a couple of things:
1) Words like frustration tend to be thought of in one-dimensional terms. Yes, there's widespread dissatisfaction with some of the Obama Administration's education policies. However, it is, to quote Vice-President Biden, an argument "in the family" about the direction of education. It is not, as it would be with any Republican candidate, a fight for the very survival of public education.
2) NEA did pass a non EON-BAMN business item directing our President Dennis Von Roekel to explain our list of disagreements with Obama policies to the President and Sec. Duncan. Many of these disagreements are the same ones pushed by EON-BAMN, but with less stridency and militancy (and IMHO...less shrillness)
3) One EON-BAMN led (or supported) business item almost passed, and that was a motion to request President Von Roekel ask for Secretary Duncan's resignation. However, what pushed this item to essentially a 50-50 split in the RA was the addition of asking that former NEA President Reg Weaver by nominated as Secretary of Education to replace Duncan.
The NEA is going to endorse the President early because its time for the largest union and all unions and their supporters to get engaged. The Koch Brother/Right-Wing Propaganda machine is already gearing up, and we can't afford to wait another year to do so ourselves. Add to that the facts:
1) The Obama Administration has saved hundreds of thousands of teacher's jobs to date.
2) Its putting more and more of our disadvantaged kids onto health insurance roles.
3) Its put forth the biggest and best student aid program to date.
4) Its signed into law the best G.I. Bill to date.
5) Its expanded S-CHIP greatly.
6) Its eliminated pre-existing conditions and other stumbling blocks that have kept disadvantaged children even further behind their peers.
7) Over a million young adults are now going to college with health insurance who wouldn't have been before the passage of AHCA, and that number will continue to grow in the years ahead.
8) The Obama Administration has poured significant sums of money into pre-K programs, where study after study has shown that the greatest good for the least amount of money can be done to "level the playing field" and promote educational success down the road.
These are some of the positive reasons. All you have to do is ask teachers in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, Alabama, Tennessee (etc etc) what the negative reasons are.
I don't agree with all of the Obama Administration's education policies, but the President has made significant advancements in education during tough economic times, and the administration does listen to us.
I'll be voting "Yes" to the endorsement of Barack Obama for President because his administration has on balance been a good one for public education, and because the Republican alternatives are too frightening to even consider.