How Do We Increase Teacher Quality in Low-Income Schools?

By Cindy Long An eighth grade math class in Oakland, California, had so many substitute teachers in one year the students couldn’t keep track of them, let alone remember all their names. They live in a high-poverty neighborhood where school funding is so low the district finds it cheaper to hire a series of substitutes [...]

International Summit Puts Best Reform Ideas on the Table

By Tim Walker High-performing countries have strong unions. They also support teachers and engage them in the reform process. Many right-wing politicians in the United States may want to ignore these facts, but in Finland, Canada, Singapore, and other nations, collaboration with teacher unions has been a keystone in their successful efforts to improve student achievement [...]

Blue Ribbon Panel Urges Overhaul of Teacher Education Programs

By Tim Walker A national panel of education experts gathered at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on Tuesday to call for teacher preparation to be “turned upside down” by a roster of innovative changes to teacher education programs. The sweeping recommendations are part of a new report by a Blue Ribbon Panel convened [...]

NEA Hosts First Summit on Environmental Education

By Ilana Kowarski Uniting in a common cause for the first time, the NEA and the Ecological Society of America (ESA) co-sponsored a summit which attracted scholars from around the world, including acclaimed polar explorer Will Steger.  The summit, “Environmental Literacy for a Sustainable World,” focused on the following question:  How should educators prepare students [...]

NEA’s Waiting for Superman Resources

A barrel-chested comic book character must save public education? Compelling soundbite to sell a movie maybe but when it comes to real education reform, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel gives the American public more credit than the backers of Waiting for Superman. “Nowhere in the film or its discussion have teachers’ voices been heard,” says [...]

Working Mother Mag Names NEA One of Its 100 Best Companies

By Christiana Campos Working Mother magazine has named the National Education Association one of its 100 best companies for family-friendly benefits. More than 58 percent of NEA’s workforce of roughly 500 employees at its Washington, D.C. headquarters is female. NEA offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes a variety of paid health and dental insurance [...]

NEA Campaigns to Strengthen Social Security

By Sara Robertson The National Education Association has joined a campaign to protect and strengthen Social Security, joining 60 national and state labor and other organizations, including the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, National Organization of Women, NAACP, SEIU, Alliance for Retired Americans, and Moveon.org. Those groups came together last week at the National Press Club to celebrate the 75th [...]

NEA Says Ed Reform Must Include Languages

By Amanda Litvinov World languages and international education are crucial to the future success of America’s students — and that’s why NEA is part of a coalition working to increase our schools’ capacity to teach them. “Our students deserve an education that prepares them to be global citizens,” said NEA Executive Director John I. Wilson [...]

Ravitch Blasts So-Called ‘Reforms’

By Alain Jehlen NEA Friend of Education award winner Diane Ravitch electrified the Representative Assembly Tuesday with an impassioned call for the defense of public education and the teaching profession. “The current ‘education reform’ movement is pushing bad ideas,” she said. “It wants to end tenure and seniority, to silence teachers’ unions, to privatize large [...]

NEA Volunteers Give Louisiana High School Extreme Makeover

By Amanda Litvinov Outreach to Teach, NEA’s annual school repair project, is always a meaningful affair. But there was something singularly special about this year’s effort to repair and beautify Belle Chasse High School, in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, one of the many communities outside of New Orleans forever changed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. “It [...]

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