Low-Performing Schools Should Be Our Highest Priority'

NEA President Bob Chase Thursday (February 1, 2001) called on the Bush administration and congressional leaders to embrace an agenda based on what teachers and school staff need to boost student learning and help all children succeed.

Chase joined NEA Executive Director John Wilson to present "The Opportunity to Excel," NEA policy recommendations focused on lifting up low-performing schools, ensuring qualified teachers for America's classrooms, modernizing public schools, expanding early childhood education and fully funding special education.

The policy recommendations include proposals for accountability measures and expanding access to higher education. The legislative agenda would target federal resources toward fixing the most serious problems in public education and benefiting the most students.

"Rhetoric meets reality in the classroom," said Chase. "The days of counterproductive arguments over education policy is at an end. President Bush and Congress agree that we must provide extra help to students, teachers, and schools that need it most. And we agree that without significant parent and sustained community involvement, students cannot succeed."

Labeling low-performing schools "our highest priority," Chase called for Congress to fully fund the Title I program. Additional resources would be directed toward low-achieving schools.

He recommended that the increased investments be targeted toward after-school programs to increase student achievement, incentives to recruit and retain quality teachers in low-performing schools, class size reduction, and parental involvement activities.

Inspired by the dramatic successes of school turnaround efforts in North Carolina and other states, Chase challenged teachers and school employees at the local level to take advantage of the research and experience showing how to best turn around low-performing schools.

As part of NEA's Priority Schools Initiative, NEA members will be trained in effective strategies for school improvement. The association also published a resource manual, "Making Low-Performing Schools a Priority," that guides communities through the school turnaround process.

"We, especially the teachers and staff who work in these schools every day, personally know there is a state of emergency in chronically under-performing public schools. We call for direct and immediate intervention. And, today, we are stepping forward as problem-solvers and partners in this venture."

Additional priorities in NEA's legislative plan include teacher quality, where significant investments would be directed toward new teacher induction and mentoring programs, defraying the cost for National Board certification, teacher technology training, fifth-year education programs, and paraprofessional-to-teacher programs to help reduce the national teacher shortage.

The remaining priorities call for:

• Federal investments to repair and modernize the nation's public schools.
• Fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Act and end this "underfunded" federal mandate.
• Enhance early childhood education through universal preschool and school readiness programs.

"We have the desire to move forward in a bipartisan way," Chase said. "And we have the opportunity to make dramatic and lasting changes in the lives of America's children."

Posted February 1, 2001