MSNBC (7/19, Resnikoff) reports that Lily Eskelsen Garcia, who will become president of the National Education Association on Sept. 1, has spent the two weeks since her election “preparing for a major battle over U.S. education policy” with both “forces on the right” and the Obama Administration on the key issue of standardized tests. Garcia said, “We must measure what matters and put students’ needs at the center of the system once again. ... We can no longer allow politicians who have never stepped into a classroom define what it means to teach and learn.” MSNBC says this puts Garcia in “direct conflict with Arne Duncan, Obama’s secretary of education” and “perhaps the nation’s foremost proponent of using test scores to judge teacher performance.”
South Carolina Paper Praises Duncan For Bucking Unions On Teacher Protections
An editorial in the Charleston (SC) Post and Courier (7/18) praises Education Secretary Arne Duncan for “daring to take on” teachers unions, which are seen as traditionally being powerful supporters of the Democratic party. The piece notes that the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have recently directed “bitter criticism” at Duncan over his “efforts to advance meaningful changes in America’s public school system.” The piece notes that both unions have criticized Duncan over his support for the Vergara ruling stripping California teachers of job protections, but argues that Duncan is correct in hailing the ruling “as an overdue step toward holding teachers responsible for the quality of their work.”
NEA Delegates Take Aim At Corporate Partnerships
Liana Heitin writes at the Education Week (7/7) “Teacher Beat” blog about a package of New Business Items addressed by National Education Association delegates at the union’s annual conference in Denver which appear to be designed to examine partnerships with such corporate entities as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Though the items were eventually “taken off the table,” they indicate “a more strident tone on partnerships, and will be a theme to watch.”
New NEA President Must Deal With Critics Of Tenure And Common Core
Politico (7/6, Emma) reports that new National Education Association president Eskelsen García “faces court cases challenging teacher tenure and job protections, the defection of historically loyal Democrats, growing apprehension over the Common Core, diminishing ranks” and “public relations campaigns painting her union as greedy.” According to Politico, García “wants to further shift the union away from its longstanding and reflexive support of Democrats,” and “to lead a campaign against high-stakes decision-making based on test scores at the same time she firms up her union’s support of the Common Core.”
NEA Delegates Expected To Focus On Standardized Testing
The Cache Valley (UT) Daily (7/1) reports that delegates at the National Education Association’s annual meeting in Denver are expected to focus on the overuse of standardized testing, according to Utah Education Association President Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh. Gallagher-Fishbaugh says that “standardized testing in reading and writing, math and science is so frequent that it’s stressing students out” and that “there seems to be frustration from educators around the nation over the increased standardized testing which has cut way down on instructional time.”