Summer Advisor 2021

REPRESENTING

SUMMER 2021 CEA ADVISOR 7

CEA MEMBERS JOIN NATIONAL COLLEAGUES TO SET NEA POLICY, HEAR FROM INSPIRING LEADERS DURING 100TH NEA RA

President Biden: “You deserve a raise—not just praise.” President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden joined the NEA RA to thank teachers for their dedication to The first lady reminded delegates of her promise that if Joe Biden were elected, educators would have one of

Nearly 100 CEA members joined 8,000 educator colleagues from around the country June 30 – July 3 for the 100th National Education Association Representative Assembly. The NEA RA, which was held virtually this year, is the top decision-making body for the more-than-three- million-member NEA and sets Association policy for the coming year. Delegates heard from many inspirational guests and took on the work necessary to set the agenda for the nation’s largest labor union. After Year of Anxiety, Exhaustion, and Grief, Educators Emphasize Importance of Coming Together to Move Forward

their profession and stress the importance of investing in public education. “NEA is one of the nation’s indispensable organizations,” the president told delegates. “And I’m not just saying that because the first lady is a member.” He continued, “The entire country has witnessed the dedication and resolve of NEA members. The American people understand what you have been saying for years: You are professionals. All of you. And all of us have a responsibility to make sure you have what you need to educate our children equitably, safely, and well.” Although the NEA RA took place virtually, NEA leaders and staff gathered in person to broadcast their portion of events live, and President Biden and the first lady joined them in D.C. Before Biden, Bill Clinton was the last sitting president to visit the NEA RA, in 1993. Previously, Dwight Eisenhower (1957) and Lyndon Johnson (1965) participated. On the campaign trail, the Bidens stressed their commitment to public education, reaching out to NEA members and earning widespread support.

their own in the White House. “Well, here we are,” she said. “You helped make this real, so thank you, NEA. I have never been prouder to call myself an educator.” NEA President Becky Pringle praised President Biden for an “unwavering commitment to our students, to educators, to unions, to racial and social justice… to the shared values we all hold dear: freedom and fairness, equity, and equality.” Biden’s federal budget proposal unveiled in April and the American Families Plan that he has introduced call for enormous investments in students and public education. “This is a historic effort to decrease the funding gap between rich and poor school districts,” Biden told delegates. “No student’s education should depend on their ZIP code.” He said that a top priority of the funding bill would be higher teacher salaries and additional resources for schools. “This is absolutely necessary if we are going to compete in the 21st century,” he said. “Unions and teacher protests across the country made it clear that you deserve a raise—not just praise!”

“We not only made it through a year of fear and loss, anxiety and exhaustion, uncertainty and grief, anger and discouragement,” said NEA President Becky Pringle during her address, praising teachers’ courage, creativity, and caring during a year that was more challenging than any most educators have experienced in their professional lives. “We didn’t just survive this year. We learned. We grew. We questioned, and we answered. We didn’t just make it through. We lifted

up our voices, and we took action in ways that demonstrated our individual and collective power.” In prerecorded remarks to NEA members, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona thanked President Biden for his unprecedented investments in education, saying, “This is our moment to make our education system work for all students and for all educators.” Cardona and National Teacher of the Year Juliana Urtubey, a Nevada special education teacher, both stressed that collaboration is key for successfully educating all children. “It has been a very difficult year- and-a-half through the COVID-19 pandemic, and one of the things I have learned is that family partnerships are indispensable to a thriving community,” Urtubey said, adding that strong family partnerships allow students to be themselves at school, and it takes

everyone in the education community to make those partnerships possible.

“Everybody plays a critical role in ensuring our children and families are seen, embraced, and welcomed and that their strengths are uplifted.”

NEA President Becky Pringle greets First Lady Dr. Jill Biden.

Stacey Abrams Asks NEA Members to Speak Up and Defend the Right to Vote The timing of voting rights activist Stacey Abrams’ remarks to the NEA RA was fitting as delegates prepared for the July 4th holiday weekend to celebrate our democracy. “One of the reasons I’m always so honored to be in community with the NEA is because you speak for so many young people who may not have the power to act on their own, but they have you to lift their voices up, to make choices that can improve their lives, and to share the values that can build a brighter future for each of them,” Abrams told educators. She told delegates that the recent Supreme Court decision rolling back voting rights should anger us but not defeat us. As we consider Juneteenth and July 4th, Abrams said that we must remember that Juneteenth is not simply about the celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation; it’s the story of justice delayed. “It’s the story of refusing to acknowledge a changed world, clinging to the past, and refusing to tell the

President Joe Biden, pictured with NEA President Becky Pringle, is only the fourth sitting president to visit the NEA RA during its 100-year history.

Education Justice Front and Center As delegates worked to set the agenda for the nation’s largest labor union— debating amendments to the NEA Constitution, bylaws, policy statements, and resolutions, as well as 59 new business items—they considered a number of items involving education justice. Delegates quickly passed New Business Item A, which calls on NEA to create a task force that identifies the criteria for safe, just, and equitable schools. Other items call on NEA to work to eradicate institutional racism. “Our dedicated educators know their job is to educate students with honesty and integrity and to allow them to develop critical-thinking skills based on facts,” CEA President Jeff Leake said. “Educators are committed to teaching the truth about racism, inequities, and social justice in our public schools, in age-appropriate ways, and helping students examine the systems in which we all work and live to help build a better future for everyone. “It is a disservice to our students, our nation’s future leaders, to deny them a complete, honest examination of our nation’s history, including the opportunity to learn about centuries of history that we cannot ignore but must acknowledge,” he continued. “Only by helping students understand our history fully can we expect them to learn from it. In a recent speech delivered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, marking the hundredth year after the Tulsa race massacre, President Biden said, ‘For much too long, the history of what took place here was told in silence, cloaked in darkness.’ He added, ‘We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know and not what we should know.’” In an op-ed in USA Today , NEA President Becky Pringle shared similar sentiments, writing, “Teaching all of our children—regardless of their race or ZIP code, whether Native or newcomer—means teaching them the truth. It means finding age-appropriate ways to have difficult conversations in the classroom.”

truth. And on Juneteenth in Texas, the truth was finally told. It did not undo the past harm, but it created space for future good. And as we celebrate our Independence Day this coming weekend, we need to remember that independence is something we didn’t inherit; it’s something we fought for and something we fight for every generation, every day. And we fight for it most explicitly when we fight for the right to vote.” She told delegates that every educator who believes in the right to vote should reach out to their elected representatives to urge them to pass both The Voting Rights Advancement Act and S 1, The For the People Act.

Heading into the July 4th weekend, voting rights activist Stacey Abrams told delegates that it is an act of patriotism to defend the right to vote.