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The National Education Association has announced the first recipients of a fund that supports state and local projects to improve teaching鈥攖he latest salvo in a push to reorient itself during a time of rapid change in K-12 education that has produced angry debates, exhausted and sometimes frustrated teachers, and left state and local affiliates scrambling to respond.
Created through by delegates to the union鈥檚 Representative Assembly, the Great Public Schools Grant has disbursed some $2 million since September, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said at a Jan. 23 forum in Washington.
In all, the NEA plans to fund $6 million worth of projects each year over a decade. Topics will include education technology, professional development, and peer-assistance and -review programs.
鈥淲e create campfires of excellence鈥 in education, Van Roekel said. 鈥淲hat we need is a brushfire.鈥
Early grantees include:
- The Kenai Peninsula Education Association, in Alaska, which will develop a cadre of observers to provide instructional support keyed to the Danielson Framework for Teaching, part of a new evaluation system.
- The Illinois Education Association, which will train up to 20 members to implement the Common Core State Standards. Those educators, in turn, will support teachers in their own schools.
- The Massachusetts Teachers Association, which will bring more educators into decisionmaking on the implementation of the common core, and will partner with Teach Plus and other organizations toward that end.
Find . Projects are vetted by a team of NEA staff and elected leaders. Not every affiliate that applies wins funding, officials said.
The fund also probably stands to be the best shot at a legacy for Van Roekel, who is term-limited out of office this coming summer.
Though naturally somewhat soft-spoken, Van Roekel has become more vocal in recent months about issues he鈥檚 passionate about, recently giving , despite misgivings from some quarters within the union. Over the last two years, he quietly oversaw the creation of the union鈥檚 , and tried to with Teach For America. Both moves required significant political maneuvering within the NEA.
At Scale
Whether this effort will change how the NEA does business remains to be seen. Historically, the union has struggled with similar attempts to focus members on teaching and learning issues, lighting plenty of 鈥溾 of its own that haven鈥檛 always caught on.
Some of that, said panelists at the forum, reflects the reality of trying to steer an enormous organization in new directions.
鈥淭he question is whether it can penetrate at scale,鈥 mused Elena Silva, a senior associate at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. "[If] the locals just say 鈥榥o, that鈥檚 not what we鈥檙e doing,鈥 then it ends. There need to be national players, there need to be state players, there need to be local players.鈥
Consider, for instance, NEA鈥檚 regional-support program, known as UniServ, which aids affiliates鈥攅specially tiny or rural ones鈥攚ith bargaining and grievances. UniServ has a wide reach in the country, but an NEA-commissioned panel acknowledged in that UniServ directors were not really oriented beyond bread-and-butter matters. (That may be changing. One of the new grantees is, in fact, a UniServ council that wants to improve the professional development members get.)
91直播 was another theme of the forum this week. This is not a minor issue: Union watchdog and critic Mike Antonucci recently reported on y that found that many rank-and-file members had little notion about what the union鈥檚 leaders were doing, and saw no particular benefit to being more involved. (Frankly, you don鈥檛 need a survey to tell you this is a concern. Each year at the RA, the vast majority of delegates are baby boomers; it鈥檚 rare to spot more than a few dozen delegates who are 25 or younger.)
Still, there are hopeful signs. Some of the union鈥檚 leaders believe that a focus on professionalism is exactly what will engage a new generation of active union leaders. Paul Toner, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said that his union has seen much more interest in forums it鈥檚 held on topics like the common core than on typical delegation meetings.
鈥渓l be honest, I don鈥檛 get 500 members when I do a 鈥榯raditional union meeting,鈥 鈥 he said.
Photo: National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel makes the case that unions should lead on matters of instructional improvement to an audience at the Center for American Progress, in Washington. Image provided by CAP.