Last Summer WE

More than 30 MEA members represented the state as delegates at the National Education Association Representative Assembly (NEA RA) in Denver, Colorado. The NEA RA is the NEA's highest decision-making body. With more than 9,000 delegates, it is also the world's largest democratic, deliberative body. The RA is convened every July during the Annual Meeting. At the NEA RA, educators from around the country debate issues that impact public education, elect top offi cers, and set policy for the 3.2 million-member Association. This year delegates elected a new slate of NEA offi cers including, President Lily Eskelsen Garcia, Vice President Becky Pringle and Treasurer Princess Moss. In addition, delegates voted to launch a campaign to put an end to “toxic testing.” (see sidebar for story)

“The Pre-NEA RA Student Conference was an amazing opportunity for our future educators to be involved in the future of this profession. Our students studying to work in public education right now are our next leaders. So it is critical they are engaged now—there is no better place than the NEA RA to do that.” - Dan Allen, UniServ Director and SEAM Coordinator

“I felt fortunate to witness democracy at work. I was especially honored this year to be selected by the MEA to represent Maine in the Fourth of July Choir. As a first generation immigrant, this experience affected me deeply and I really feel that this is my country now. In addition, after the choir, an Asian Hawaiian delegate stopped me and said that she was glad Asia was represented in the Choir.” - Ina Demers, Ed Tech, Portland EA

“The highlight for me at this Representative Assembly was the opportunity to speak on the floor of the RA to over 9,000 delegates. This year there was one issue (Outreach2Teach) that I felt strongly enough to speak. The opportunity to meet and talk with delegates from students to retired to other active delegates as I gathered support for my position kept me busy for several days. In the end I learned that if you believe strongly enough about something, you need to use your voice. You may not come out on the winning side (and I didn't) but you will know you spoke up and others heard.” - Jan Cerabona MEA-Retired

NEA Launches Campaign to End 'TOXIC TESTING' By Cindy Long and Sara Robertson

Delegates to the National Education Association’s annual meeting in July voted to launch a national campaign to put the focus of assessments and accountability back on student learning and end the "test, blame, and punish" system that has dominated public education in the last decade. The campaign will among other things seek to end the abuse and overuse of high-stakes standardized tests and reduce the amount of student and instructional time consumed by them.

The anti-toxic testing measure also calls for governmental oversight of the powerful testing industry with the creation of a “testing ombudsman” by the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Consumer Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission. The position will serve as a watchdog over the influential testing industry and monitor testing companies’ impact on education legislation. NEA will continue to push the president and Congress to completely overhaul ESEA and end mandates that require yearly testing, and to lift mandates requiring states to administer outdated tests that aren’t aligned to school curricula.

“It’s past time for politicians to turn their eyes and ears away from those who profit from over-testing our students and listen instead to those who know what works in the classroom,” said NEA President Dennis Van Roekel.

The new measure comes at a time when parents around the country are also fed up with the testing obsession. Opting-out protests have taken place in Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Alabama and other states. Grassroots parent movements say they will protest until overtesting is curbed.

To add insult to injury, students in already underresourced schools are subjected to fewer opportunities to access richer curriculum and course offerings to prepare for college or careers—a discriminatory impact of the test-based accountability regime.

This country has refused to adequately fund schools attended by low-income kids. Poverty, constant mobility, lack of adequate health care, the stresses of crime, living in near constant fear of violence—all of these have a major impact on learning and is far more than schools can tackle alone. Education plays an enormous role in lifting people out of poverty, but to hold educators solely accountable for the impact poverty has on current students—and to do so using test scores—defeats the goal.

The NEA is also calling on lawmakers to repeal federal requirements that state standardized tests be used to evaluate educators and implement “real accountability in our public education system,” said Van Roekel. “Educators know that real accountability in public schools requires all stakeholders to place student needs, not profits, at the center of all efforts. As education professionals, we fully accept the great responsibility to always raise our standards of practice and place students' needs first.”

Van Roekel insists that in order for real, sustainable change to occur in public education, major work must be done to address the growing inequality in opportunities and resources for students across our nation. “Poverty and social inequities have far too long stood in the way of progress for all students,” said Van Roekel.